Winnifred & Lyle's Everyday Miracle
by Copper Hikari
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Winnifred's boring life means working at her uncle's hotel in Aspartia Town, at least for right now. By night, Winnifred's an unlicensed Pokemon Trainer, participating in the underground battle scene. She meets Lyle, an awkward teenage Pokemon Ranger far from home. Together, they slowly learn of the wonder in the Pokemon World, and what it means to defend it.
1. Welcome to Aspartia Town I

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

Welcome to Aspartia Town! - Part 1

-Winnifred-

The 'new message' tone rang loud and clear.

Room 14: Is everything okay?

Winnifred turned the volume knob down on the computer, then minimized the window. Uncle Howard glared at her subtle hand motions.

"I'm not interrupting anything?" He asked.

Winnifred shook her head.

"Excellent. Now, as I was saying, those assigned to hotel staff group A will need to stay in the lobby and maintain the tile shine. I know it's hard work, especially with the families coming in for the summer, but somebody's got to do it."

_Somebody but you_, Winnifred thought. Another ding from the computer, followed by another flashing notification. She hovered the mouse.

Room 14: It sounds kind of noisy. I didn't get you in trouble or anything, did I?

Winnifred glanced back at Uncle Howard. He paced back and forth, one hand at his belt and the other rubbing his shiny forehead. She typed back.

FrontDeskSupport: Everything's fine, no worries. Uncle's being paranoid again.

Room 14: What, he thinks the building'll burn down without him?

"It's a month in Sinnoh, but a lot can happen in a month. My plane could go down. The economy could crash. Winnifred back there can get knocked up. It happens."

FrontDeskSupport: Knock on wood.

"What do you want, Mac?" Uncle Howard bellowed.

Mac, the twenty-four-year-old IT support guy, raised a tentative hand. Winnifred had only seen him once, the day he was hired. His beard hadn't been quite as scraggly and his skin not remotely as pale. Uncle Howard figured that meant Mac was doing his job. "Just a question, boss."

"My name's Howard, I keep telling you."

"I know, Boss." Winnifred stifled a smirk. "I don't mean no disrespect or nuthin'. You're the head honcho, you keep us fed and whatnot. And yeah, we do goof up, so you're probably right to tell us all the risks of your highness leaving for a month…"

"Get your nose out of my behind and make your point."

Mac's back stiffened. "Well, the day shift ended fifteen minutes ago."

Winnifred knew it, just like the other four staff members with them. The worst victim didn't even work at Embassie Hotel. Mirelle barely got out of her day job, all for the excitement of glaring at Winnifred from the other side of the front door for the last fifteen minutes.

Winnifred mouthed 'sorry' for the fifteenth time.

Uncle Howard sighed. "You're right. And since I hired every one of you, I guess that means you're responsible." Then, dropping his hand in the air: "Dismissed."

Winnifred stood up loudly, letting her desk chair knock against the wall. Uncle Howard's gray, tired eyes had drained of the military formality by the time they found her.

"God, I sound like such an ass. I'm coming on too strong with the whole 'manager' thing, I know it," he said.

"We all know it," Winnifred said, rapidly closing computer windows and putting the lobby phones on hold. "We don't all _like_ it, but that's just part of being a stable, honest employee of Aspartia Town, a place in which I am thrilled to work and please don't fire me, lovely Uncle Howard."

"Huh. Would you like some complimentary bathroom tissue for all of that BS you just spouted?"

Winnifred's smirk escaped and echoed through the lobby. She slapped a hand to cover her mouth, but the blush spread.

Uncle Howard's mouth curled into a half-grin.

"Please don't say I remind you of Mom," Winnifred groaned.

"I wasn't going to say that."

"You were thinking it!"

"I was thinking you should shut that computer down and get off of my property. Poor Mirelle's been waiting for you." He rubbed a hand along his stubble. "Probably dropped her keys down the storm drain again, or something."

"That was _one_ _time._" She took a final glance at the computer screen, pulling her backpack on as she read. One new message.

Room 14: Have a good night. Don't do anything outlandish and fantastic.

The weight in her blue plaid backpack sent shivers in her spine.

FrontDeskSupport: I am what I am and I do what I can.

FrontDeskSupport is closed for the day. Operating hours are 9 to 5 M-F.

The computer blinked into sleep mode, ready and waiting for the night receptionist to take over. Winnifred didn't know her. Winnifred didn't care, either. She was out the door before Uncle Howard could warn her not to wander down strange alleys or talk to strange men. It was a habit.

Winnifred rushed her practiced reply as she pushed the door open. "I'll be home late tonight, enjoy your flight and _please_ have fun on your vacation, Mirelle says 'hi' and don't forget to pack your pills and bye!"

"I say 'hi'?" Mirelle rolled her eyes. "I would hope my imaginary alter-ego has a little more personality than 'hi'."

Winnifred pulled her along, nearly dragging Mirelle's lanky body along. "Hold on, where's the fire? My arm's gonna fall off."

"I'm trying to make it look like I'm late so Uncle Howard doesn't try to walk me home," Winnifred explained.

If Winnifred squeezed hard enough, she could probably bruise the poor girl. Winnifred ate the same diet of burgers and ramen, yet only one of them had the subsequent love handles. Same went for the breathy voice, the subtle curves, and the deep pink bob cut. The one caveat to living with an artist: Winnifred looked at herself next to Mirelle and saw an insult to femininity.

Case in point: Mirelle being so damn sweet to _everyone. _

"He still says all that?" Mirelle raised an eyebrow. "You didn't even give the man a chance to wish you luck tonight, did you?"

"He's not wishing me luck, he's wishing me to stay inside and shut the doors and be afraid of whatever goes bump in the dark. It's insane." They paused at the intersection. Winnifred's knee paced back and forth. The hair tie on her left wrist had chafed all day, and the palm of her hand itched. "It's like he's afraid I'll die by living."

"That's a bit much," Mirelle said. They crossed the street to Aspartia Town's business district. Skyscrapers and shady alleyways galore. "Don't get me wrong. I'm still pretty sure you'll end up kidnapped with your knees broken, but that's not death per se."

"My number one fan, Mirelle, everybody." Winnifred cracked a grin. They continued until the herds of exhausted workers in tight suits started to thin. Once she was able to walk without swerving past high-powered, over-salaried working stiffs, Winnifred started digging through her bag.

The one glove went on first. She had cut the fingers off herself. Losing the other glove was an accident, not an attempt to be a unique, edgy Trainer. Honest.

Next came the Trainer belt. She wrapped it around her waist, deliberately letting the side with her one Pokeball hang low on her hip.

"It's too bad changing at the hotel is out of the question," Mirelle smirked. "If you got dressed while standing still, preferably surrounded by fancy windows, this whole thing would be like a transformation sequence."

"Real Trainers don't need transformation sequences."

"That's what I meant. It was a low blow, Winnifred."

"I realize that," Winnifred replied. "I was simply steeling my emotions. It's another Trainer thing."

"Just like flirting with Room 14?"

Winnifred willed her cheeks to refuse the blush. "It's not flirting, it's talking. You can't flirt with someone who's not in real life."

"Right. So you'll just let him say nice nothings to you as long as he's living in that room, abusing the front desk messaging system to _not_ flirt with you."

She tossed her bag back along both shoulders. The girls stopped at an empty corner. The streetlight above them flickered to life.

"Room 14 could be a creeper," Mirelle wondered aloud. "Or a predator! I mean, he knows what _you_ look like. You're a gorgeous sixteen-year-old."

"Gorgeous? Wow, stop the presses. My roommate thinks a digital predator thinks I'm gorgeous."

Winnifred approached the dim subway station. Mirelle stopped dead in her tracks and jabbed a finger into the din. "It's not down there tonight, is it? Tell me it's not down there. The trains don't even run anymore. It's gotta be a hive of scum and villainy down there."

"It's not too late to back out," Winnifred sang. "Scaredy-cat."

Mirelle shook her head, eyes shut and fists clenched. "I'm not backing out. I'm just saying that if anything awful happens, it was all your fault and Uncle Howard was right."

"And wouldn't he love to hear it. Come on, the message said they're starting soon."

"Who's up first?" Mirelle asked as she followed Winnifred down the concrete steps. The overhead lights cast the two of them in a sorry, pale glow. "Hulk Hogan or Mr. T?"

"Some new guy. He's got a gold tooth or something." Then, jumping onto the long-deactivated train tracks: "I thought you liked Hulk Hogan?"

"I do." Mirelle bunched the hem of her skirt in her hand. She landed softly on her tip-toes. "He gave me his Sprite, and I was thirsty. That was sweet."

"A forty-year-old loser giving a sixteen-year-old girl a drink in an alley, during an illegal streetfight. Mirelle, we need to find you a normal guy."

"He was normal enough. I mean, he clearly didn't brush his teeth or shave, but still."

The first time Winnifred followed the train tracks to get around, she kept looking over her shoulder, waiting for something to come out and do something ghastly. The second and third time, she wondered what she was afraid of. Random Woobat attacks? The boogeyman? Telling Uncle Howard where she was when she got attacked by the boogeyman and his Woobat squad?

Uncle Howard telling her mother where she'd been?

Floodlights illuminated the scene just up ahead. The angry grumbles of grown, disgruntled adults filled the air.

"Oh, I didn't answer your question," Winnifred said. "It's me. I'm first."

Mirelle popped her lips. "Huh! And we're late. That certainly won't give them a reason to kidnap us."

"Kidnap us and leave our nubile bodies in a ditch," Winnifred finished with a grin. She kept the grin on during the entire final steps to the ring.

The groans and grimaces of the Aspartia Town Underground scene weren't home. Not yet. Winnifred was used to clean gymnasiums and licensed professors teaching her Battling 101. She was used to waiting in line to practice one throwing gesture, not squeezing through bodies twice her size, her best friend and roommate's hand squeezed, until she got to the center of the ring.

And when she got to the front, she was used to teachers frowning. Not this one, they'd think. Not the one that can barely hold a Pokeball right, much less do the pounds of reading assigned every night.

To be fair, she could get used to the earth-shattering cheers as she emerged. Winnifred handed her backpack to Mirelle.

"You're late," the voice of authority said. An older man—enough to be her father, in fact—with tan skin and a heinous comb-over served as the Underground's referee. He even dressed the part, white polo shirt and black slacks and even a moustache. Mirelle liked to think he worked as an undertaker in his spare time. "We almost had to call the match without you, Winnifred."

"And what a shame that would be, right?" She stretched her left arm across her body. "Who's up tonight?"

A hint of a smile appeared in the corner of the referee's mouth. As if he didn't enjoy his part-time job.

"In this corner, the challenger!" He announced. "New to our home scene, a young man all the way from the infamous Black City, the terrifying, the deadly…"

Voices beside Winnifred chortled in anticipation—

"The heinous Biker Roy!"

The tall, lean man with his torn denim jacket, boots, and bald spot summoned a smile on Winnifred's taut lips. She scratched her head, tapped her foot, _anything_ to keep from laughing.

Biker Roy entered the ring and circled, pumping his arms to energize the crowd. Winnifred caught Mirelle putting a hand to her forehead. Men.

He turned back to face Winnifred. Fat hands thumped against flabby man chest. "Four-thousand bucks," he announced. "I'm betting four-thousand dollars that I can wreck Alice in Wonderland over here."

The referee turned to Winnifred. The crowd died, waiting for the cue—

"I'm game," Winnifred replied. And the cheers returned in full force, enough to make Winnifred wish she had brought her headphones.

It was time for the part she hated most. She couldn't blame anybody else for this, and truth be told, that was part of the embarrassment. Winnifred removed her lone Pokeball from her belt and held it high. The worn red paint had chipped, and the white half lost its luster months ago. But in her hands, Winnifred's Pokeball was a beacon.

"Any takers tonight?" She announced, her teenage girl voice straining to carry. "Four-thousand dollars…sounds like a lot."

The offers poured in immediately.

"Four-thousand, one hundred!"

A man right behind her: "Five-thousand dollars!"

"Six!"

"Seven fifty!"

Biker Roy's bravado drained. He tugged at the referee's sleeve. "What in the hell is going on?"

The referee pointed to the Pokeball in Winnifred's hand. "See that ball? Look closely. It's got a card reader on the side. Lights, too."

"Huh. It's a Permit Ball." And connecting the dots: "Don't tell me doesn't have a Trainer's License."

"She uses this for the experience," the ref explained. "Whoever unlocks the ball gets the prize money."

The babydoll doesn't even want the money…Don't tell me she's like, twelve."

"Nah, she's legal." And surveying the crowd of willing patrons: "Believe me, she's legal. At least in Western Unova."

A final supporter had emerged. An aging man, decades older from the usual Underground clientele. Winnifred typically avoided taking money from older people. Winning fights for guys in their twenties was fine and dandy, especially since they had a kind of weird respect for the system. Older men only wanted one thing from her. It gave her goosebumps. But hey, that was the system.

"Ten-thousand dollars," the older man said. "Ten-thousand dollars that this young lady wins."

"Ha!" Biker Roy chortled. "Bleed me dry, why don't you! I don't have that kind of dough. Tough luck, sweet—"

A hand in the crowd. "I'll make up the difference."

Heads turned to the young man's voice. Cleaner, more wholesome. Cut from a different cloth. He came to the front of the crowd, and Winnifred did not recognize him. Brown hair in a plume, held back by a headband. Blue vest, black shorts, and a bag strapped across his torso. Two, maybe three years older than her.

The strange boy nodded to Biker Roy, who seemed to accept the offer.

His eyes met Winnifred's. The bright brown stare that seemed so interested…

Whatever. If Winnifred hadn't gotten busted for this before, it wasn't gonna happen now. Probably.

Biker Roy removed his Pokeball of choice from his inside jacket. He cast it into the center without fanfare. The ball erupted into white light, then bounced back to Biker Roy's open palm. As the light faded, the evening's opponent appeared: a red Pokemon hunched onto its front knuckles, with beady eyes and teeth to tear limb from limb.

The ref resumed his crowd-pleaser voice. "Biker Roy sent out Darumaka!"

"A fire-type, specializing in physical blows," Winnifred said. "That's nice. I'll take it over a Patrat any day."

Time for the final step.

Winnifred reached to the hair tie on her wrist. In one fluid motion, she pulled her wavy chestnut locks back into a tight tail. She wrapped the tie around once, twice, finally a third time. She let the tie snap into place.

The one strand of light curl that fell over her face used to be an annoyance. Several accessories later, she kind of liked it.

Winnifred lowered the Permit Ball. She held it level to the older man, who took time to remove his Trainer License from his wallet. When he had it in his grasp, he swiped the card along the horizontal slit. The Permit Ball's lock blinked green.

She cast it into the ring—

Blitzle materialized in the white light, its black and white mane glistening under the pale light. Blue electricity raced along it's the ivory horn atop its head.

"And it's Blitzerella, Winnifred's Blitzle of choice!"

She let the smug smile show. As if she had any other Pokemon to choose from…And even if she did, why would she ever _not_ rely on Zella?

The ref raised a hand—

"Trainers…Win or lose? Let's rock!"

—And the hand dropped!

"Darumaka, Flame Charge!" Then, to Winnifred herself: "A little girl who doesn't know how to fight? Easiest ten-thousand I ever made."

Winnifred clenched her fists. "Zella! Same to you, Flame Charge! Go!"

Both Pokemon lit up in red fire. Swirls of flame engulfed the two, and Darumaka and Zella raced for one another. Zella was faster, but Darumaka had the heft. If they collided, Zella would go down, and it'd be a real short battle—

Time for the 'A' game.

"Now! Game-change it!" Winnifred's gloved hand shot forward, fingers out. "Flame Charge, Cancel to Discharge!"

Biker Roy scrunched his face. In fact, everyone seemed confused except for the knowing referee, a fist-pumping Mirelle, and the strange boy.

Zella stopped in her tracks, still carrying the fire plumes around her. In the second before Darumaka smashed into her, Zella grounded her hooves, whipped her head around to gain energy in her horn, and—

Biker Roy was too late. "Darumaka, _no!_"

The Discharge strike hit as a neon yellow sphere, surrounding Zella and flowing out. Darumaka hit it head-first, its body convulsing against the electric juice.

Zella followed through: the instant her technique finished, she tackled Darumaka to the ground, her Flame Charge fire still intact.

Darumaka rolled along the ground, a disoriented, burning and sizzling mess.

Winnifred had to yell over the audience roar. "The ref was right. I don't have a Trainer's License. He never said anything about whether or not I could fight."

While Darumaka struggled to its feet, Biker Roy clearly racked the shallow depths of his brain for a counter-attack. Winnifred would bet all twenty-thousand dollars in play that he had never seen a Cancel before. Much less anything else she could throw at him…

"Fine! Try this!" The desperation in Biker Roy's deep voice was embarrassing. "Darumaka, Flail! Let's see My Little Pony take this!"

To its credit, Darumaka was built to take a punch. It raised its own gargantuan fists and raced for Zella, swinging in a flurry of red blows. Zella weaved through each one, but she was slowing down. Winnifred knew too well that Zella was still just a Blitzle, she didn't have an adult Pokemon's speed…

Biker Roy was clever after all. He was just making her tired.

Darumaka took a half-step back—

"Flame Crash it!" Biker Roy shouted. "Pound it into the concrete!"

Darumaka slammed its fists into the concrete floor, propelling it eight, nine feet above them, almost beyond the flood lights' reach. Zella found herself covered under the round Pokemon's shadow, waiting for orders as her opponent once again charged its body into flames—

"Time to show off," Winnifred boasted. "Zella, jump at it!"

Mirelle's "_What?!_" echoed down the tunnel.

Zella catapulted to meet Darumaka halfway. Her tired body paled next to the impressive fireball that raced for her.

Winnifred counted the milliseconds, waiting for her opening—

"Hit it! Wavedash him!"

Zella was a blur on the wind. Her white and black stripes melted into a gray mass that zipped clear under Darumaka, avoiding its trajectory entirely and for a fraction of a second, being under it entirely—

Game over.

"Final strike—Thunder!"

Zella flexed her body, reveling in the blue electricity running the length of her form. It traveled up into her horn and waited, almost mockingly, until Darumaka was hovering in the air and staring at the element of its demise. The blue electricity turned a painful yellow as it flew straight up.

Darumaka collapsed to the ground, utterly fried.

"Winner!" The ref called. "Winnifred and Blitzerella!"

Winnifred watched the reactions from the crowd. She recognized a few familiar faces now that the pre-battle edge had worn off, and truth be told, half of them weren't even surprised. This wasn't the first time she used a Cancel or a Wavedash.

Just the first time she was really show-off-y about it.

Winnifred took her hair tie out once they were back on the surface. Mirelle always made an overt show of turning back to watch the way they had come, and tonight was no different.

"I think if we were gonna be jumped and sold to some offshore slaver, it would have happened by now," Winnifred sang. She flipped the Permit Ball in her hands, feeling the fresh night air waft through her mane.

"Yeah, well," Mirelle replied. "I still don't like this. You cost that man ten-thousand dollars, Winnifred."

Winnifred held up a finger. "True story! Equally true, though, I won some geezer that very same dollar amount. _And_ because I'm such an interesting show, I'm still invited back to the Underground scene. My training in the ways of the Pokemon Trainer may continue."

Mirelle threw her head back. "There's no point in talking to you like this. You've got that after-battle, I-am-so-great voice on."

"It's a well-deserved voice, if I do say so myself!"

…

Another day, another eight hours killed at the front desk.

"Don't wake me up," Mirelle had said when they first became roommates, almost a forever ago. Or really just six months ago. Winnifred changed the number depending on the mood. "Let one of us get our beauty sleep."

That was the first moment Mirelle really smiled: when Winnifred told the poor girl that no amount of beauty sleep can fix a messed-up face. Despite being in Aspartia Art University and keeping their apartment caked in acrylic paint, Mirelle always seemed like she had been brought up by stern, unfunny types. The kind of family that always had a yes-or-no answer.

Yes, I'll be quiet as I leave.

No, I'll wake you up as I head to my lame job that reeks of nepotism.

And then here came Winnifred, with her well-intentioned insult and charm in spades. A forever or six moths later, Winnifred headed to work and left poor Mirelle asleep on the couch, passed out from where she had to make up time on her project after seeing the Underground match.

"You don't look too good."

Mac, the IT guy. He and Winnifred worked the early-morning and afternoon shifts, Mac because IT was ever so in-demand, and Winnifred because she enjoyed having money to pay rent and buy food. Since he kept to his back office during the more busy hours, Mac got away with wearing his band T-shirts and his long hair. At one point, Winnifred didn't believe Mac was twenty-two years old until she saw his resume on file.

"I bet," Winnifred said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "I probably look just like I feel."

"Nah, then you'd just look slightly constipated." Mac pulled himself up and sat on the desk. His feet dangled beside Winnifred while she typed in the computer start-up passwords. "So, you gonna tell me where you were that was so engaging?"

"A bar down the street, it's called Nunya Business."

Mac held his palms up. "Hey, just making conversation. The boss is gone for a month and on day one, it's already a ghost town in here."

He had a point. This time on any other morning, Uncle Howard would be barking orders at the staff, making annoying small-talk with the tourists as they woke up, and the stress would make that vein on his forehead even veinier. Winnifred hid behind the reception desk, and Mac had his office. A quiet morning like this _was_ out of the ordinary.

"It does feel lifeless," Winnifred conceded. "Here's an idea. Can you get some music playing over the speakers?"

"The speakers reserved exclusively for boring, formal orchestral music?" Mac beamed. "I am _on_ it." He leapt back over the desk and took off toward his back office, the squeak of his sneakers echoing.

The next echo: a distinct _ding_ from the computer speaker.

Room 14: Top of the morning to you!

Winnifred shook her hands out.

FrontDeskSupport: Good morning, customer that can't seem to get off of our message system.

Room 14: I am very capable of logging off. You click that 'x' button.

Room 14: Like so.

Room 14 has logged off.

Room 14 has logged on.

Room 14: Did it work?

A small smile fell on Winnifred's face. Not one of those ha-ha smiles. Just a little, amused grin.

Before typing again, she took a quick glance. Uncle Howard was long gone, but it was a good habit to keep up.

Mac clearly wasn't afraid of her uncle. The change in atmosphere when Mozart was replaced with a Slipknot album said it all.

FrontDeskSupport: Yes, it did. I need to get to work, just like every other morning.

Room 14: You're already _at_ work! =D

FrontDeskSupport: Working hard or hardly working? No, srsly. Gotta work.

And not a moment too soon. Winnifred minimized the window and looked up across the lobby. Two bigger guys with dress shirts walked around, admiring the art facsimiles on the walls.

"Hi! Welcome!" Winnifred called to them. "How can I help you?"

A third man followed behind them. Winnifred noted their long gait, and the way the third man's black vest hung off of him. One of those fancy dress vests to go with his suit, but still worn at the edges. A familiar furrow along an aging brow. Restrained anger, the kind men have when they're _this_ close to knocking somebody out.

By the time he came to the front desk, Winnifred knew exactly who he was.

"If it isn't Alice in Wonderland," Roy said. When Winnifred kept silent: "What's with the silent treatment? Chesire Cat got your tongue?"

What should she do?

Just play it cool.

Roy clicked his tongue. "Aren't you gonna offer me a room? Man, talk about crap customer service."

Winnifred swallowed hard. Professionalism first, panic later. "Were you interested in a room?" She said curtly.

Roy stretched his arms. The fabric on his shirt stretched. "So glad you asked, Alice. My boys and I just got into town last night. We would've checked in around then, but I got scammed out of ten thousand dollars." He paused. "You know how that is."

"I beat you fair and square." Her voice chafed.

"That's BS, for one. No little schoolgirl knows how to do a bloody Cancel move without even having her License, so you obviously cheated."

"I did _not—_"

"That said, I'm pretty glad my boys followed you and your girl friend home. I know where you work," Roy said spreading his arms, "And I think free room and board is in order. Somewhere equivalent to ten thousand dollars' worth."

Winnifred shook her head slowly. "Not going to happen." Half because Uncle Howard didn't have ten thousand dollars to blow, and half because he'd murder her for having a secret life.

Roy sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that." He turned back to his friends. "Buckos!" He snapped his fingers—

Both men took a separate painting from the wall. The frames smashed as they hit the tile floor.

"Hey!" Winnifred shouted. "Stop that!"

"Pay me my money."

Deep breath. "I don't have—"

"What the hell was that?" Mac asked as he came from the back office. He poked his head through the door, eyes landing on Roy. "Winnifred? What's going—"

Winnifred screamed; Roy's friends pulled Mac from his room and slammed him against the bare wall. He kicked and struggled, but his lanky programmer's arms were nothing next to biker muscles.

"Let him go!" Winnifred yelled. "He didn't do anything. This is my fault. Settle it with me."

"I intend to," Roy said. "I owe somebody eight thousand dollars, and you're gonna get it to me. I'll give you…fifteen minutes," he said as he regarded the wall clock. "Don't make me wait. The alley on Fifth and Balbo."

Winnifred's mind raced. Roy socked Mac straight in his abdomen, then again on his forehead, knocking him out cold. The three men left in no hurry; one of Roy's henchmen kicked over a plant, just because they could.

What could she do?

Winnifred pulled her backpack from under the desk. Her battle gear was still there, but the Permit Ball was still locked. And even if she could find a Trainer License to unlock it, what was she supposed to do? Beat Roy into submission? Wasn't that _the_ illegal crime of the modern era?

Wasn't she already a criminal underground Trainer?

She realized: that sound in her head was _not_ her going insane. It was the customer in room 14, blaring message after message. She pulled the window open.

FrontDeskSupport: What do you _want?! _

Room 14: There you are! I heard crashes. What happened? Are you hurt?

Winnifred wiped the nervous sweat from her eyes.

FrontDeskSupport: I can't talk to you right now. I screwed up something, bad.

Room 14: Are you hurt?

Winnifred struggled to breathe.

Room 14: Start from the beginning.

Oh, _this_ was rich. Mac is with full-grown mobsters demanding a ton of money, but sure, let me talk to the Internet first. Winnifred bit her lip.

_There's_ an idea.

What did she have to lose?

FrontDeskSupport: Do you have a Trainer's License?

She almost started to pray.

Room 14: Yes.

FrontDeskSupport: I need it. I'm coming to your room now.

Room 14: What? : /

Winnifred cracked her knuckles. If she was going to explain this over the Internet and save herself the gab time upstairs, she had to be quick about it.

FrontDeskSupport: Men came and broke stuff and hurt my friend and I need to go help him so I need your License to fight them before my uncle gets back. I'm coming up, be dressed or something!

Winnifred closed the window, slammed her hand on the keyboard for support, and raced for the main staircase.

She knew how dumb this was, how presumptuous the whole thing was. If she knew someone over the Internet, she'd probably always be afraid they were some old creeper. Isn't that what Mirelle said last night? Or every night? That Room 14 was clearly some kind of predator?

Her feet raced to the hallway. Winnifred weighted the options.

Call the police. Admit to being an unlicensed street brawler.

Take the money from Uncle Howard. Get shipped back home for being a scumbag neice.

Do nothing. Let Mac battle the fates himself.

Or…

She stopped at Room 14. No light came from under the door, despite it being well into the morning.

Last chance to turn back. Winnifred couldn't help anybody if Mirelle was right, and this guy grabbed her and stuffed her in his suitcase the second she opened the door…

She decided.

Three quick knocks on the door.

"It's me," Winnifred said. "From the desk."

She watched the doorknob twist slightly…then stop.

"You said your friend is in trouble."

The voice was young. Younger than she expected. It almost took Winnifred's resolve away. It's easy to bother a predator when you expect a predator, but a young guy?

Winnifred nodded. And when she realized he couldn't see that: "Yes."

A pause. "You didn't go to the police."

"I can't," she said. "It's…I screwed up. I really, really screwed up."

Silence.

Winnifred watched the unmoving doorknob, counting the seconds. How long did she have now? Ten minutes?

The doorknob turned. The door swung back.

Before her stood a boy her age. Scraggly blond hair failing to lay flat and poking up where it hung at his eyes. His simple black shirt hung at his broad shoulders, the fabric draping down his lean body. Winnifred found her reflection in the boy's oval-shaped glasses.

"You're her," the boy confirmed for himself. "You're the front desk girl."

Winnifred remained silent. There was no way this boy could help. He wore nerd glasses and probably hadn't showered. This _was_ all a mistake.

"You can help me?" She asked, her face stoic. The boy nodded.

"Give me your License. I need it to unlock my Permit Ball."

He shook his head. "I can't do that. It's against the law. I could get in trouble."

Winnifred's jaw _dropped_.

"That's what I need from you right now," she said, voice raised. "Look, I'm fine with us being friends on the computer, because you're sweet and it's nice, but don't say you can help me when you can't! Don't waste my time."

"I _can_ help you."

Winnifred folded her arms. She gave him until the count of ten…

"My name's Lyle. I…I'm a Pokemon Ranger."

* * *

Holy heck, it feels good to be back! I've had this one floating in my head for a few months. Stick around, enjoy the ride, review if you like, and thanks a ton for reading.


	2. Welcome to Aspartia Town II

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

Welcome to Aspartia Town! – Part 2

-Lyle-

This wasn't how he expected their first meeting to go.

Lyle wasn't a complete idiot. He knew what he was doing, being sweet to a girl over the hotel message system instead of going and talking to her. It was simple and easy, but if he kept it up, he'd be labeled a creep. Lord knows that once a girl thinks you're a creep, there's no going back.

Besides, he had a mission. The front desk girl might have some information that could help. Again, Lord knows that getting information in Aspartia Town is worse than finding a needle in a flaming, nuclear haystack.

So when he heard the crashes downstairs, he probably could have gone to investigate personally.

Lyle had laughed at the thought. If he could go to the lobby, he could have gone outside anytime in the last two weeks. He hadn't. And so he didn't.

Then here comes the front desk girl, replying to his messages and needing help, finding herself in some kind of trouble.

If there was ever a chance to act out of character—or maybe even get back _into_ character—it was now. He offered his help.

And now here she was, in his doorstep.

This was _not_ how it should have gone.

"A Pokemon Ranger," she repeated his words. The hurry in her voice stabbed him, and she smirked. "I'm not an idiot. Pokemon Rangers have assignments and missions. They aren't shut-in Internet people."

Harsh. "I have those," Lyle said simply.

"If we had a Ranger in the hotel, Uncle Howard would have known about it."

"He does."

The girl had more to say, but she didn't. She started pacing in his doorway, eyes shifting. He remembered them from checking in, weeks ago, a moment she clearly had forgotten. Those big, round honey eyes that took in the world, that round porcelain face that had smiled so sweetly…

God, did they _make_ people like this back in Oblivia?

She clenched her fists at her sides.

"Look. I told you everything you need to know in that message."

"Men came and took your friend," Lyle recited.

She nodded. "Can you help him?"

"I-I think I can."

She raised an eyebrow. Way to sound reassuring, Lyle.

"Hold on. Let me get my things," he stumbled. Lyle closed the door behind him and fumbled through his belongings in the darkness, with the computer screen's glow as the only light.

That and his Styler, which sat unused in its charging cradle. He'd take that last.

The routine. What was the routine? Try and remember!

First things first. Put on some shoes. Grab the black converse. That'll work for now.

He found his gloves in the unused sock drawer. They had probably given the complimentary Bible some company.

The belt was for the official look. Because this was official business, even if it kind of wasn't. Lyle didn't want to explain his absence to his higher-ups, but did that mean ignoring when someone needed him?

Lyle ran a hand through his hair and took a breath. The moment of truth.

He pulled the Styler from the charging cradle on his desk. It rested on his forearm, the buckles clipping along his wrist. The display blinked to life.

Twelve missed calls, all from HQ. Lovely. He'd deal with that later.

Lyle faced the door. Faced the outside world.

He stepped into the hallway.

"I'm ready," he told the girl.

Her eyes raced to his Styler. She was probably like most people: she'd heard of Pokemon Rangers and maybe seen one interviewed on TV, but never got up-close and personal. The orange and blue plate on his arm _was_ a bit future-looking, Lyle conceded.

The girl nodded. "Good. Let's go."

She took off down the hallway, clearing the stairs three at a time and sending her curls flying in her wake. It took Lyle a moment. His lungs adjusted to new air, his eyes to actual light. He shook out his legs.

And then he ran.

Lyle met her at the lobby front door, darting past the smashed plant and the bare walls. They pushed the doors open and were suddenly outside. The scream of Aspartia Town traffic, the glare of the skyscrapers and the hot, smog-ridden air almost overpowered him.

"They're at Fifth and Balbo," the girl yelled. She ran past him. Her hair smelled of coconut, and it took a moment to connect the dots.

"You're going the wrong way!" Lyle shouted as he followed her. The girl ran across the intersection, narrowly dodging a yellow cab. It blared its horn and Lyle waved an apology. "Fifth is back _that_ way!"

"I know a shortcut. The other way takes too long!"

"I've never seen a shortcut on a map—"

"Would you be quiet and keep up?!"

She held out a small hand. It caught onto a streetlight and the girl spun, carrying her momentum with her into an alleyway. Lyle wasn't so graceful, instead skidding on his shoes and leaning on the pole for support.

Now he saw what the girl was getting at. "A subway tunnel," Lyle noticed.

The girl stopped to catch her breath. The tears in her jeans seemed to be worsening, and her baggy shirt had obvious sweat stains. "I thought…Pokemon Rangers…Had to do cardio?" She huffed.

"We do. I'm just not a fan of it."

Lyle took off, this time leading the way as the two descended into the station. Flickering lights and the glow of Lyle's Styler illuminated the path to the abandoned tunnels.

"This way!" The girl jumped onto the train tracks.

"These tunnels weren't on my maps," Lyle mused.

"Yeah, Aspartia Town's a beautiful mystery. Come _on_!"

Lyle followed her onto the tracks, and then they were racing down the dank tunnel, their lungs burning and legs screaming. The Woobat hiding in the ceilings screeched as they raced by.

"This is it," the girl said when they reached the next platform. She struggled to climb up from the tracks, unable to kick her legs up and over. Lyle jumped clear onto the aged concrete of the platform and extended his hand.

She seemed confused, for only a moment, before taking his help and being lifted up.

"Did you just jump six feet in the air?" she asked.

Lyle shook his head. "Fifth and Balbo," he repeated.

"Right. Fifth and Balbo…This way. Up the stairs."

It was identical to the way they had come. A race back to the turnstiles, a simple jump past the ticket counters, and a final race up the dank stairs to re-emerge in yet another alley. Lyle didn't stop; he kept up the stride, racing to the sidewalk, and only the girl's voice pulled him back.

"We're here," she said.

Lyle didn't understand. "In the alley? The intersection is…"

As he turned around, he understood. The _alley_ at Fifth and Balbo. Because what kind of idiot criminal broke the law out in the open?

Lyle surveyed the scene.

Front and center, a bigger guy with a shoddy dress vest and discount designer clothes. A lame, balding haircut and muscles that told of life outside of Aspartia's upper-crust culture.

Behind him, two schmoes about the same height. Twice Lyle's size and twice his bulk. Unlike their boss, these guys had to be at least half fat, half muscle. Their gait was all they had going for them.

Finally, Mac from the hotel lay with the trash bags. Lyle spied a bruise on the side of the young man's face. Out cold.

Then there was the front desk girl, watching the whole scene with an unreadable stoicism. Lips tight, posture upright, knees locked.

"Alice in Wonderland!" The main thug said as he addressed the girl. Was that her name? "You bring my money?" Then, noticing Lyle: "Don't tell me the pretty boy here has it."

And addressing Lyle directly: "Take it from another guy. A cutie like her ain't worth eight-thousand dollars. Probably." A devious grin.

Lyle stepped forward, facing them all.

"By authority of the Pokemon Ranger Union, I'm placing you under arrest for breaking, entering, kidnapping and extortion. You may come quietly, and you have the right to remain silent."

The men watched him, arms folded. Studying his mettle.

"If you resist, I'll have no choice but to apprehend you b-by force."

_That_ did it.

Lyle, you awkward wreck, you.

The leader held a hand to his ear. "What was that, little man? I didn't hear you, you seem kind of nervous. Maybe you should speak up."

Alice in Wonderland regarded both of them carefully. Waiting, watching for—

"Lyle, watch out!"

A third man from behind! Lyle heard the heavy footsteps race for him, let him get close enough to feel the man's rancid breath on his neck—

Lyle moved just an inch to the left. The man stopped in his tracks, his headlock taking only air.

He recited the moves from rusty memories.

Lyle dug his elbow deep into the man's abdomen. Like he thought: no muscles, just flab. The man keeled over for air, just in time for Lyle to rotate his arm and smash his elbow against his attacker's skull. The man stumbled—

Lyle spurred himself on: "Time for the coup de grace—"

Lyle swept the man's legs, carried his motion through a lightning-fast spin and, with his attacker in the air, kicked him forward.

Thug number three landed face-first on the putrid alley floor. Time between attack and defeat: 1.04 seconds.

"I'm getting sloppy," Lyle said.

Alice in Wonderland's eyes went large. Larger and more captivating than before.

The leader reached into his vest pocket. The thugs behind him followed suit, reaching to their back pockets. Lyle knew what came next.

"Last chance to come quietly," Lyle warned them. "I am authorized to use force."

"_I am authorized to use force,_" the leader mocked. To his men: "Let him authorize this."

Pokeballs exploded in the alley. Three Pokemon crowded around the young Ranger: two Patrats and a Darumaka. Only the Darumaka had any heft to it; the other two might as well be cardboard cutouts of enemies.

The Pokemon waited to attack. Muscles or not, the thugs were scared. The leader apprehensive.

Lyle's Styler blinked to life, the sensors doing their jobs. The female voice crooned in its Oblivian accent: "Pokemon detected. Capture ready."

Surprise, surprise. One of the Patrats attacked first. Lyle tuned out their Trainer commands and focused on the here and now.

The glorified ferret dived for him, fangs and claws stretched. Lyle ducked, and when he stood back up, he whipped his Styler arm back behind him. The Styler's attack component—essentially the Styler outside of its wrist holder—flew toward the Patrat, hovering in the air and moving at Mach speed.

Lyle waved his arm in rapid circles. The Styler responded in kind, racing around the immobile Patrat as it struggled to turn around and attack again. It moved to leap forward—

The telltale blue light and 'pop' noise.

Thug two: "What the _hell_? Where did my Pokemon go?!"

Then the leader: "Darumaka, flail!"

The red ball of fists shot forward. Lyle watched each fist, his mind calculating. If any one blow connected, his ribs would crack, and the impact would easily cause internal bleeding.

The first swing came—

Lyle weaved around it, curling his entire body around the arm. The next blows came and Lyle dodged them accordingly, ducking and swerving and even jumping when Darumaka attempted to sweep his legs—

The second Patrat came for him mid-jump.

If he didn't think fast, the Patrat would chew his face off and the body would be a punching bag—

Lyle craned his whole body back, lying prostrate in the air, and Patrat glided clear over him with less than an inch of wiggle room. The Pokemon's unwashed fur tickled his nose.

The Patrat crashed into the trash bins along the alley. Lyle's Styler moved in, circling the Pokemon as it struggled to get up.

"Not this time, Ranger!" The leader bellowed. So he was finally getting serious, then. "Darumaka, _get _him already!"

As if dodging blows could distract Lyle from a capture. What was he, an amateur?

Lyle raised his arm to the sky, swirling circles again and the Styler always responding. Darumaka's fists swung wildly and accurately, but Lyle was a specter, a blond blur of motion.

He snapped his arm back down and the second Patrat disappeared in blue light. Another 'pop', another enemy down. Lyle somersaulted backwards— "That's impossible," uttered Thug Two—and landed with a renewed distance between himself and Darumaka.

The leader was just as speechless as Alice in Wonderland. Both jaws hung loose, collecting flies.

Lyle hadn't even broken a sweat. His Styler spun beside him, waiting for commands.

"Well, well," the leader said. "I was wrong. We're looking at the real deal. A Pokemon Ranger here in little old Aspartia Town. I should have shown a little more respect."

Alice in Wonderland kept opening and closing her mouth. What was she seeing?

"This has been fun. I'll feel bad sending you back to Ranger HQ in stitches."

What did she know that Lyle didn't?

"Darumaka!" He held his arm out, fingers extended. "Mega Punch!"

Darumaka responded in kind. It drew a mighty fist back and charged it, his fingers each growing and his fist shaking with raw kinetic energy.

It was a split opening. He could dodge the Mega Punch technique easily and have this done. He whipped the Styler around—

"Lyle, _don't_! It's a Cancel—"

"Cancel to Flail!_ Smash_ him!"

Darumaka struck!

Lyle narrowly dodged the blow, jumping and skidding back to within a hair's breadth of the Mega Punch enabled fists. The Flail blows came again, this time with the charged strength. If Lyle got hit now, he'd probably never wake up.

Lyle backflipped to gain more distance. He landed to find what he expected: Darumaka standing in place, staggering and blinking slowly. Heaving for air.

"What are you doing, jackass?!" The leader berated his Pokemon. "Get back in there! Move! _Move!_"

Lyle watched a smile spread on Alice in Wonderland. A curt smile, the kind you only enjoy when you're not on the receiving end.

"Alice?" Lyle asked. "Do you want to explain it? Or should I?"

"You Canceled a charge move," she explained. "Darumaka's got the strength of a stationary attack, and he's trying to combine it with a really, really fast one.

"Long story short, you tuckered him out," Alice finished.

Lyle walked up to Darumaka, slowly and surely. The poor Pokemon didn't have the strength left to lift its arms, much less to attack. Lyle touched its fuzzy forehead with his index finger and gave a light shove. Darumaka collapsed under its own weight.

The two thugs had broken out into a cold sweat minutes ago, which for Lyle may as well have been a year. The leader in particular had a curious stain around his crotch.

Too bad for those off-brand, discount slacks.

"Now that we've gotten that taken care of," Lyle announced. "With the authority of Pokemon Ranger Union, I'm placing the four of you—"

"No!" Alice in Wonderland ran between them. "Lyle, don't. I don't want that."

Lyle tilted his head. "I'm confused."

"You said it," said the leader.

Alice faced the thugs. "Roy, here's what's gonna happen. You'll pay me back for the damages, right now, and then you'll give me back my friend and you'll never come near me, or my hotel again. Am I understood?

And again, for emphasis: "Am I _understood_?"

Alice in Wonderland's words shook the thug back to life. He removed his wallet and threw it to the ground. "That's all I've got," he said. "I was sleeping on the street, it's why my buddies and I wanted free rooms…"

"Yeah, not my problem." The girl took the wallet and flipped it in her palm. "Now beat it."

The thugs did as they were told. Roy went so far as to help the first thug—the one that met the wrong end of Lyle's shoe—to his feet. Darumaka returned to its Pokeball in a flash of red light, and the entire gang headed back down the tunnels, tails between their legs.

Mac had slept through the whole ordeal, resting against the wall and quiet as a newborn.

The girl flipped through Roy's wallet, thumbing through bills and cards. "He was right about being broke," she said. "The bum has twenty bucks and a check-cash card. Sheesh."

Lyle held his arm out. The Styler flew back and snapped into its compartment. "Alice?"

"That's not really my name," she said. "I'm Winnifred. With two 'n's." She held up two fingers to illustrate.

"Winnifred." Honestly, she did look more like an Alice to him. "Do you mind explaining what I'm doing here?"

"Easy. Those guys kidnapped a co-worker—"

"It seemed like they knew you," Lyle interrupted.

"They did. I told you, I messed up."

"Getting thugs to trash your uncle's hotel is a pretty big mess-up."

Lyle folded his arms. He wouldn't have been anywhere near as brave twenty minutes ago, but the adrenaline and endorphins bathed him in a veritable confidence cocktail. She wasn't getting away without telling the story.

Winnifred knew it, too. She walked to Mac and eased his arm on her shoulder.

"It's…You're gonna tell my uncle about this, aren't you?"

When Lyle didn't answer: "This is what I get for going to a cop..."

"I'm not a cop."

"Yeah, I know." Winnifred sighed. "I'm a Pokemon Trainer. I had some money riding on a fight last night with Roy, but apparently, the guy that was supposed to pay him never showed. Roy followed me home last night for…_whatever_ reason, and he came by to make trouble."

"In other words, you just needed me as hired muscle."

Winnifred's lips pulled to one side. Her gaze went to her shoes.

Lyle held his hand out. "I need to see your Trainer's License."

"What?!" Winnifred's porcelain face flashed crimson.

The adrenaline rush died instantly. "I-it's a routine procedure. I need to scan your Trainer's License."

Winnifred put Mac back down. She stood slowly, still not bearing to look Lyle dead-on. Her lower lip seemed to tremble. She mumbled.

"I couldn't hear—"

"I said I don't _have_ one, okay?" Winnifred blurted. "I don't have a license. I've only got one Pokemon, and she's in a Permit Ball and she's perfectly legal, but that's it."

Lyle processed the information slowly. He drew his hand back.

It made sense now, why Winnifred needed a Trainer's License back at the hotel. Why she didn't go to the police first, or why she was so reluctant to believe he was a Ranger.

She was going to fight these thugs on her own. They _definitely_ didn't have girls like this back in Oblivia.

"Winnifred, not only is the Underground a dangerous place for a teenager—"

"You're like, one year older—"

"—Battling without a license is a punishable offense. Almost as bad as battling for money outside of a sanctioned Pokemon League match."

Lyle silenced himself then. He examined the ways he could go about it.

On the one hand, he could take credit for his first Mission Clear in fifteen, going on sixteen days. Ranger HQ would forgive his lapse in communication. It would also mean arresting this poor kid, confiscating her Pokemon and probably wrecking her life.

If there was one thing separating Lyle from the pack, it was his outlook on justice and mercy.

The idea that maybe they were one in the same.

He flashed a grin.

"I'll tell you what," Lyle started. "Let's make a deal."

Winnifred nodded.

"I call an ambulance for your friend, what with his possible concussion and all, and you stop battling Underground. Sounds like a fair deal to me, right?"

She perked her head up, slowly. Eyes paralyzing. "You're serious."

"As a heart attack." Lyle grinned. He initiated a few keystrokes on the Styler screen, and a cheerful tone sounded when he completed. "Ambulance is on its way!"

"Thanks," Winnifred said, uncertain.

The energy drained completely from Lyle's system. He felt his muscles ache from the acrobatics, felt the first beads of sweat along his brow. He realized how far he was from the safety of his hotel room, how much he suddenly needed solitude.

Cause for sudden failure to be a sociable human being?

Remembering that he and Winnifred frequented the same building. Awkward.

"So…I'll see you around?" Lyle rushed. He turned tail and raced down the street before Winnifred could speak.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_, Lyle chided himself. All of that build-up to talk to her, and he didn't even get to ask the important bit. _Stupid_.

The ambulance sirens blared down the other side of the street as he started for home.

…

He hadn't even taken his pants off yet when the Styler screamed at him. Calling the ambulance from his Styler was the first outgoing signal in weeks. He expected this. But still.

Lyle had shut his room door, drawn the blinds, and reoriented himself to the comforting darkness. He didn't mean to be weird. It just kind of happened.

It's what Lyle told his Head Operator too: "Today just kind of happened."

"Kind of _happened?!_" The Head Operator screamed. Lyle had met her only once. She was a woman in her early twenties, _maybe_ twenty-four at most, if she was one of those people that just didn't age. Her screaming voice belonged in a crochety aunt. "Ranger, should I read off the list of charges against you that seem to just have _happened?"_

"That's not necessary—"

"The first check-in with HQ was scheduled the day after you arrived. Obviously that didn't happen."

"I can explain—"

"After that, you were supposed to infiltrate the Aspartia Town Underground. I get the feeling that didn't happen in the 72-hour period it should have either. Because _hey_, you would have checked in."

"Actually, that's part of—"

"_Excuse me_, Ranger. I am still speaking." She waited for Lyle to become silent. Then: "As I was continuing on…I can only conclude you have made _zero_ progress on the XD-01 Operation. Protocol states for you to return to Almia to relinquish your Styler. Mission Fail.

"Unless there are objections," she added slyly.

This was why Lyle was assigned to this particular Head Operator, and he knew it. Lyle had the habit of helping whomever, whenever, with no thought to consequences. This woman had the same opinion, but respected authority just a _bit_ more.

So instead of booting Lyle out of the Ranger Union immediately, he had one chance to state his case.

Lyle swallowed.

"I've made progress on accessing the Aspartia Town Underground," he said. "It's taken me this long because I…no excuse," he amended. Lyle spied the empty noodle containers piled around his dirty clothes. He had no excuse, point blank. "But I have found someone who can lead me to what I'm after."

The Styler speaker went silent for a moment. Then: "The men you fought aren't a credible lead, Lyle," in her gentle speaking voice. "Your Styler sent their Pokemon to us before beaming them back to their Pokeballs. Two Patrats aren't from the caliber of Trainer we're after."

"The men weren't, but Winni—" Lyle stumbled. "B-but the girl shows promise."

"How so?"

"She's a…she knows a Trainer in the Underground. It's a lead." And for emphasis: "She can help us."

"She can help _you_," the Head Operator corrected. Lyle heard papers shuffle in the background. "Fair enough. I _should_ pull you out, but to be fair, we threw you in another country and told you to find a needle in a haystack. You have your mission extension."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

"You're welcome, Lyle," she sighed, exasperated. "Just…do us a favor and call when you're supposed to? You worried poor Stephen sick."

The signal died. The Styler screen flashed: next check-in call, forty-eight hours.

_Great_. Lyle circled around his room. Forty-eight hours to go back to the outside world.

How was he supposed to do that?

Worse: go back to the outside world and do a mission. Working missions back in Ranger Union territory was easy. It was all country, with trees and nice people and the occasional thug.

Welcome to Unova, the world laughed. Complete with several metropolises—metropoli?—trees replaced with steel structures, and more thugs than smiles.

Scary, country boy?

Come out of your hut when you've grown a pair, said Aspartia Town.

Lyle sat on his unmade bed and wrapped himself in the unwashed sheets. The same thing he'd done for weeks. The same thing he—

_Ding!_ went his laptop on the floor. Lyle leaned over the bed to pick it up. He had left so quickly for Winnifred that he'd forgotten to shut it down…

One new message.

FrontDeskSupport: Thank you.

Lyle bit his lip. The typing cursor stared at him.

Room 14: Think nothing of it.

He put the laptop aside. Another _ding_, this time faster than he imagined anyone could type it.

FrontDeskSupport: If you ever need anything, come down and ask!

Lyle laughed out loud, then closed the computer shut.

He'd have to do this tomorrow, he realized. Too much social interaction for one day, and his batteries were fried.

He wondered how best to ask Winnifred. In person would be easiest, but she was so distractingly, so _stupid_ beautiful.

Aspartia Town's beautiful mystery.

"Ahem, excuse me, Miss Winnifred?" Lyle said to his ceiling. "Would you be interested in helping me bust a crime syndicate?"

* * *

Thanks for reading! Review and let me know what you think.


	3. The World We Live In I

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

The World We Live In – Part 1

-Winnifred-

Today was the _worst_.

Winnifred hated being in the back seat of a moving vehicle. Whenever she thought back to awkward, horrible moments, they always took place with her in the back seat. Maybe that something had to do with being trapped in a metal tank in times of the tragedy.

Let her count the ways.

There was the first time she got in a school fight. Forget how beating the tar out of that boy back in fifth grade was noble, how she was standing up for poor friendless Sue Kidd. Ten-year-old Winnifred's mom spend the drive home tearing her daughter a new one.

The drive to Dad's house, that first and only time.

Then there was the drive to the Mistralton City Airport, four years later.

And here was unholy number four: the taxicab ride back to the hotel. Mac had told her Don't worry about it, and something about Ranger Union paid all the health bills, so there's No harm, no foul. He kept humming some ridiculous, drum-heavy metal song and rocking his throbbing head. Good ole' Mac.

He probably got a kick out of it, being rescued by a Pokemon Ranger. Anyone would be. In fact, the more Winnifred thought about it, the more she wondered why she _wasn't..._

Lyle jumped six feet in the air on two separate occasions. He could somersault _backwards_, because apparently Rangers could break physics. He fought Roy and his minions without breaking a sweat, he never lost his cool…

"I bet he was ripped," Mac mused.

"That's the eighth time you said that."

"Well, it's the truth. Have you seen Pokemon Rangers in action? They're like, half-acrobat. Gotta be all lean and toned for that kind of thing."

"I'll bet," Winnifred sighed. She watched as the taxi turned to the hotel's street. "You know, Uncle Howard's gonna kill me."

"So some random gangsters broke in, kidnapped the lovable IT guy, and you had to leave Boss Man's pride and joy alone for a few hours." Mac grinned. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Don't be such a goody-goody all the time."

Winnifred thought about the lost paintings and broken pot. She mustered the balls to get Roy's wallet, but that wasn't enough money to buy a decent sandwich. Winnifred needed to fix Uncle Howard's stuff, but she would replace them all…how, again?

"He probably knows," Winnifred said. "Right now, Uncle Howard's like, 'I don't know why, but I really want to strangle my niece.'"

"To be fair, that's his default setting."

"That and 'I should really fire that IT guy.'"

"'Because he's so charismatic.' I know, right? Look at this chiseled chin," Mac pointed. "_Look at it_, Winnifred!"

The cab had been prepaid, another courtesy of the Ranger Union involvement. It was infamous knowledge that Unova had the worst healthcare system—read: _none_—compared to any other country. The X-rays to Mac's head would have bankrupted the guy.

Lyle the Pokemon Ranger: the blond-headed, nerd-glasses-wearing gift that kept on giving.

The first thing she did at the front desk was frantically check for missed calls. Just two. The one woman that kept complaining about cable programming, and some telemarketer selling something in another language. Bullet: dodged.

Winnifred sat at the computer. Her fingers moved on their own. Not that she wouldn't have done it consciously anyway. Thanking Lyle was just proper manners. Same for asking him to come out once in a while. Anyone that saves the day deserves some sunlight.

The rest of the day alternated between taking forever, and taking no time at all. It was the change from twilight to night, unmoving until you finally believed twilight would always last. And then _bam_, it's darkness abound. Five o'clock quitting time.

And no sign of Lyle, not even once.

She knew the boy was shy, for sure. She'd have to have been blind not to remember how he kept his room pitch-black.

Room 14 stayed logged onto the chat all day. He kept typing, then stopping. What a waste of time; why couldn't Lyle just come downstairs? Or call the desk? He knew she was right here.

"He's just beat to holy hell," Mac said as he left for the day. "This Lyle kid did, like…break gravity to save me, right?"

"Well, he catapulted clear over me—"

"If I were him, I'd have my abs buried under an ice mountain. And I'd be swimming in painkillers."

Without looking up, Winnifred said, "Those are illegal without a prescription. Uncle would fire you."

Mac gasped. "I'd lose this job where I spend all day in a room and end up concussed? Oh, darn."

They traded grins, and Mac passed through the doors. The gentle sound of the door closing never came.

"Excuse me, miss?" Then: "I know it's getting late, and I'm very sorry. Today has been…well, rather interesting."

"Tell me about it," Winnifred said. Still not looking up from the computer: "I'm actually just getting off. The person on the desk after me should be here soon." Which was a lie; Willa was _never_ in on time. It'd be lucky if she was here in the next hour.

But Winnifred wanted to be home already. She wanted to gab at Mirelle, she wanted to stuff herself silly, she wanted television and un-monitored Internet and her bed…

"That's too bad," the guest said. A young man, probably a little older than herself. "I'll wait over here, then. It shouldn't be too long, right?"

"Not long at all," she lied. "There are couches right over—"

When Winnifred looked up to direct him, she recognized the young man instantly.

That wave of unmanageable brown hair, contained by a blue headband on his crown.

Those kind eyes that had no place in the Underground.

"Not again," Winnifred groaned.

The man blinked. "Excuse me? Did I do something wrong?"

"Something wrong? Let me explain something to you, bucko." Winnifred stood up, anger recharging her willpower. "That biker guy already came around here sniffing for his money. I don't know where he is, but he ended up carting one of his buddies down a black alley. You're not getting _anything_ from me, and if you don't get out right now, I'm hitting the panic button." Which she didn't have. "Try me, really."

He held his hands up by his shoulders, then backed away slowly. "I don't know what you're talking about, but that's kind of what liars say when they're caught in it, aren't they?"

He laughed. Winnifred did not.

"I can't say I don't remember you from…last night, but I promise I'm not a stalker or something gross. There's nothing worse than a stalker."

"Tell me about it."

The young man knew when he was beaten. He nodded. "I know what this looks like. I apologize for threatening you. I'll be on my way."

Winnifred kept her stare trained, irises like laser sights as the young man backed toward the door. She didn't let her breath go until he had already crossed the street and started for a Pokemon Center, or one of those skeezy hostels, or wherever-else stalker thugs go.

The door swung back open right when Winnifred left the desk. Hayley, the graveyard-shift front desk girl, gave her an accusing up-and-down glare. "Am I…late?"

"Nope," Winnifred said as she powered through the door.

The walk home couldn't have been more excruciating if it tried. Cars honked at her every time she tried crossing the street, no less than two bums did that shake-the-coin-jar thing at her, and Winnifred swore, if someone actually said something to her, she'd break their face.

It was just that kind of day.

God-awful day aside, being Winnifred did have some perks. Living above a neighborhood bakery and rooming with the owner's daughter constituted a pretty solid perk in her book. Winnifred waved at Mirelle's dad behind the counter. He pointed to the muffins behind the glass display. She shook her head and continued into the building.

Winnifred climbed the three staircases in the apartment building and turned the key in her lock. Immediately the eighties music blared at her.

Their two-bedroom apartment had taken a bit of a beating. Mirelle turned what would have been her bedroom into a miniature studio, and she herself slept in the living room. That's what made finding a roommate so hard, and why it took Winnifred's special brand of not-caring to make it work. She tip-toed past Mirelle's nest of a couch and entered their kitchenette. Her cabinet was _almost_ out of Coke. She'd make it another day at least.

Winnifred hung by the door to Mirelle's space. She sipped her drink and watched the show.

Writers and actors and musicians all have their own quirks.

Writers coat the floor in manuscripts and make you slip and die in the night (Mirelle Roommate no. 1).

Actors have outrageous personalities, meaning when they're not clinically depressed they're throwing wild parties that go on into the night and get the attention of the sour lady across the hall. (Mirelle Roommate no. 2).

Finally, musicians. They're just self-explanatory. Mirelle Roommate no. 3 had trombone practice at whenever-o-clock.

Artists were a quiet, amazing bunch. Mirelle wore her torn-to-holy-hell pants from ninth grade along with an old tye-die shirt. Her fat headphones delivered a steady stream of orchestral scores (it made the change from the music in the main room enforce how this was a different space, or whatever), and

Mirelle moved with her paintbrush like a conductor. Her canvas stretched along the entire wall. The Aspartia Town horizon couldn't aspire to be as wonderful in reality.

The phone rang. Winnifred kept a phone in her room; she threw her bag down and went to her room across the small hallway. She had to weave through the maze of laundry and old paperbacks to get to the phone.

Winnifred picked it up. She didn't notice Mirelle stumbling out of her studio space, running to Winnifred's room, and blurting "Don't pick it up, it's—"

"Hello?" Winnifred asked.

"Oh, you're home. What happened to your job? I thought you were on the desk until five."

Winnifred swallowed. "Hi, Mom."

Mirelle mouthed an apology. She sat at the floor, watching the scene with roommate solidarity.

"No, I'm serious," Winnifred's mom dropped the condolences. "Howard left the hotel for two weeks, and I _told_ him you weren't ready, but—"

"It's five-thirty, Mom. There's a time difference."

"I'm a hour ahead of you. I can do math, Winnifred, I'm not an idiot. How did you get from Howard's hotel to here in…fifteen minutes?"

Winnifred faked a laugh. "Why are you busting my balls over this?"

"_Excuse_ me?"

Mirelle heard that one. She cringed hard, like she'd stepped into ice water.

"I had a rough day, Mom. Sorry for the language."

A pause. "Your brother's coming into town next week."

"Dawson's coming?" Winnifred bugged her eyes out for the performance. "Where's he staying?"

And the award for false sincerity goes to: "He's staying with his little sister in the big city, of course!"

"He couldn't have asked me himself? Seeing as how I pay my own bills…"

"No, you don't."

"Mom, I have a _paycheck—"_

"Besides, he was too busy to call anyway. He's being productive with his time"—pause—"so I said I'd make sure you got your hovel straightened up for him. You don't still live with that bohemian girl, do you? Marian, or something? You know, the drop-out."

"Mirelle," Winnifred said. "I told you, she's an artist. She's applying for art school."

Another pause. "That's something, I suppose."

Ouch.

"Speaking of dallying, have you signed up for your license test yet?"

Welp, this had gone on just long enough.

Winnifred gave Mirelle the thumbs up. Her roommate removed a shoe and started slamming it on the doorjamb, loud.

"Mom, I've gotta go! Mirelle hurt herself again, I really—"

A sigh. "I wish you didn't think I'm an idiot. I'll send Dawson with your rent money."

"I don't need it, I have a job."

"_Please_. Don't embarrass yourself." Then: "Talk to you soon. Ciao."

The line went dead.

Winnifred let the phone slowly fall out of her hand and hit the carpet.

Mirelle stood up. "I'm sorry! I didn't hear you come in, I couldn't warn you! She was calling every five minutes for the last hour, I was just letting it ring, that's why I started painting."

"Oh, so she _knew _I was at work."

"Of course she did," Mirelle said in her best 'comforting' voice. "Why, what did she say this time?"

Winnifred flopped on her bed.

Would her roommate like an itemized list?

"Your brother's coming to visit?" Mirelle prodded. "I-I mean, that's what it sounded like. Is he nice?"

Well.

When Winnifred hit that boy in fifth grade, Dawson came to the boy's defense. Dawson, the golden boy of the family never did any wrong and could do no wrong. When his big sister did something she thought was right, and something against Dawson's law-driven world, Dawson was the first to suggest suspending her from school.

Which, by the way, ended up happening. Dawson smiled the entire ride home.

"What are you smiling at?" She asked. Their Mom screeched for ten-year-old Winnifred to shut her trap. Nine-year-old Dawson smirked.

Ten-year-old Winnifred unbuckled her seat-belt and beat the tar out of nine-year-old Dawson, right there in the middle of Mistralton City's suburban streets.

It made Winnifred feel better until it didn't. She ended up with a bruise on her face from Mom-based ire and had to tell her teachers she hit her head when she finally got back to school, but it was worth it.

In Dawson's world, if you have the adults and the rules on your side, feel free to be a dick.

In Winnifred's world, dicks got their nuts kicked.

"He's a government trainee or something," Winnifred said into her pillow. "He's all into laws and stuff."

"Wooooow. He's probably really smart, huh?"

Winnifred remembered his 'Atlas Shrugged' phase.

"Oh, yeah, Dawson's _real_ smart. Ask him how he feels about social structure. It's a trip."

The music in the main room switched to some lame song. Simple Minds.

"I'll bake you something," Mirelle said, beaming and breaking the silence. "Banana bread! Your favorite." And running to the kitchen: "Just try and stop me!"

Oh, Mirelle. Thank God for the Mirelles of the world.

When Mirelle was gone, Winnifred crawled out of bed and writhed across the hall. She unzipped her bag and pulled Zella's Permit Ball from the main pouch.

It had been a full day since Zella got to stretch her legs. Was she cramped in that little room of hers? What was the air like? Was she hungry?

Winnifred had wondered, back at prep school: could Pokemon hear their Trainers from inside?

She cleared her throat.

"So today, I caused at least three thousand dollars in damages to Uncle Howard's hotel." She sighed. "Mac ran the numbers before I left. That's a lot of zeroes.

"Oh, I've got a stalker. He's got this hair that's like a tumbleweed that just shows up out of nowhere after you spotted it in an Underground brawl.

"Then, um…I got in an alley fight, and my lovely elitist brother invited himself over. You remember him, Zella. Dawson's the guy that wrote his middle school entrance paper on why we should privatize Pokemon Centers."

Winnifred smirked. Of course Zella remembered. Dawson would never touch an electric Pokemon again, for that matter.

She saw her grin appear in the Permit Ball paint.

"But it's not all bad," Winnifred said. "At least there's banana bread."

…

-Lyle-

The next morning stole his nerves along with the violet morning air.

Lyle stood at his window, running his hands through his wet hair and letting his wet body drip onto the floor. That was the one perk of living in a hotel: free cleaning.

He went back to the computer screen. All of his Ranger training, all of his memorized protocols and his sore-as-balls muscles couldn't help him in this.

"Good god," he told his reflection. "You'll be forty and still be afraid of talking to a girl."

He pulled the blinds shut and slapped himself. He needed to get ready.

The logic was simple: get her when she first comes in, and she has early-morning delirium. She'll be so tired, she won't scream and call Lyle a crazy foreign Ranger stalker. She'll accept the offer to help him investigate the Underground without questioning how dangerous, bogus, and thanks to being a Ranger Union operation a violation of both Unovan _and_ Ranger Union laws.

"…And then I'll guilt trip her the rest of the time I'm here," Lyle groaned. Smooth plan.

He checked himself again in the mirror. No Ranger garb, not this time. White shirt, dark-blue jeans, yesterday's converse. Maybe if he just looked like a normal eighteen-year-old kid…

Nope, nope, nope. Since _when_ had Lyle been a girl-magnet? The uniform was the only thing that made him look remotely manly. Without it…

The Styler's alarm blared. Nine o' clock. Winnifred time.

"Alarm off," Lyle said. Then: "Dignity, off. You don't want to see this, trust me."

He descended the stairs and stepped into the lobby. She wasn't behind the desk, though. Winnifred stood at the blank space where there used to be artwork.

She wasn't at the front desk.

Meaning she wouldn't be distracted by getting the computer set up.

That wasn't part of the plan. She'd be too conscious to accept his ideas, it'd be bad. It was shot, he was _screwed_—

_Come on, Lyle_. He stretched his arms above his head. _If you can get Pokemon to help you, you can get a girl to. Hell, you can get someone in this city to. _

Lyle started walking. One foot in front of the other. In front of the other…

-Winnifred-

"Knock-knock!"

Winnifred didn't move her head. The wall's blank space glowered back.

"Um…Knock-knock?"

"Who's there?" Winnifred groaned.

"Nobody important. Just your friendly neighborhood Pokemon Ranger!" Lyle said. He stood beside her and rocked on his heels, hands buried so far in his pockets Winnifred wondered if he was hunting for gold. "I mean, good morning," he added.

"Morning."

"What are you…What are we looking at here?"

"My fortune." Winnifred waved a hand across the wall expanse. "See this? It's a thousand dollars of blank space. If I'm lucky."

"That's a lot of blank space dollars," Lyle said.

"Tell me about it. It's not just this one, either. Check it out." Winnifred pointed down the rest of the wall. "Empty, and also empty." Then at the spot by the door: "There used to be a plant there. I can buy a replacement easy, but the rest…Hey, question."

"Hey, answer."

Lyle smiled. Winnifred didn't.

"I-I have an answer," Lyle amended.

"They don't swear over in Almia, do they?"

"Actually, I'm from Olivia. Almia's got the headquarters, so it's an easy mistake to make. You'd be surprised how many Rangers _don't_ come from Almia, though. They've got the Ranger School, but Fiore's the place where Rangers get prestige."

Then, during the lull: "I forgot to answer your question."

Winnifred shrugged. "No, it's fine. What's the Oblivian way to say 'my parents are going to rip my head off of my shoulders?'"

"Growing up, I liked the phrase 'swimming up screwed-creek to gonna-get-boned-ville." Lyle turned red as he said it. "It's got a certain elegance to it, I think."

Winnifred's gaze lingered around his face. He had those thin, clammy cheeks that guys with longer faces tended to have, but the red kind of filled them out.

"If you turn any redder there, you'll explode," Winnifred said, still watching him.

Lyle turned away for a quick second. Long enough for Winnifred to smirk. Did boys her age still get shy around girls?

Boys stopped being shy around her in fifth grade. Bust one little boy's lip, and you'd be surprised how unattractive that makes you, even at that age.

"So!" Lyle said a little too loud. "What's work like today?"

Winnifred shook her head. "I'm off today, actually. I'm not on the desk, the girl who's supposed to be is just late. Late and somehow, even she makes more than me…"

"I'm sorry," Lyle said.

Winnifred stared at him again. "You haven't done anything…"

"No, but life is interconnected. The paintings got stolen, and I'm involved in how that happened."

Winnifred's jaw opened and closed. "You _do_ realize you did nothing wrong by beating up street thugs."

"Ranger HQ teaches us not to seek violence first. Reason and logic trump all."

"Huh. You've got a really, really bad poker face, Lyle."

"In my defense, I watch a lot of TV. It sounded funny in my head…"

Did Lyle's face ever get tired of smiling like that? Winnifred figured if she grinned like an idiot every time she totally bungled a conversation, she'd have wrinkles at twenty. Hell, she'd be sagging at twenty.

Lyle popped his lips. "Hey, question."

"I have an answer," Winnifred said mockingly.

"What are you doing here, if you're not working today?"

"That's…You're trained to see through lies, right?"

"It's required to all Rangers to detect signs of falsified information, yeah."

"I _could_ say I just missed my job…"

"But you'd stare up at the left side of your brain, which is responsible for on-the-fly storytelling. And your words would come slower and have filler words as you talked your way through the fib."

"Exactly," Winnifred pointed. "May as well be honest. I'm waiting to beg Mac—the guy you saved?— if I can do some chores around the hotel for bonus pay."

"To replace the paintings…"

"Before my uncle gets back, that's the plan." Winnifred bobbed her head. "I'm not dumb. I know it won't be enough, but that's not going to happen. I'm thinking if I can at least show that I'm taking some initiative…because lord knows my family has a thing about taking initiative—"

"I can help."

Lyle said it too fast. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I can help. Get you a job, I mean. I can do that."

"Don't Pokemon Rangers need awesome Ranger skills?" She laughed. "Like lie detecting."

"You've never heard of Ranger Net," Lyle said. "It's got part-time jobs for people affiliated with Ranger Union, even if they're not Rangers themselves. It opened a few years back, after the Guardian Signs incident." Then: "Which I didn't just say, because that would be bad."

"In one ear and out the other," Winnifred said. She tried to maintain some reserve, but it wasn't happening. "I'm sorry, what was this about a job?"

Lyle pointed a thumb back toward the stairs. He stopped and started, then: "Let me get my…I'll be right back." And he was off like a missile.

-Lyle-

_Score._

* * *

The plot thickens! I won't lie, balancing two personalities this way is a lot harder than it looks. How dare Rainbow Rowell make it look so easy...

You know the drill! Thanks for reading, thanks for still reading if I've got you from chapter one, review if you like, and thanks for coming.


	4. The World We Live In II

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

The World We Live In – Part 2

-Winnifred-

They sat on one of the larger sofas along the wall. Winnifred had watched the hotel guests enjoy them every day. The kids jumped on them, tired dads fell asleep on them, exhausted moms yelled at the kids and dads for not helping her get the family vacation on track, and so life goes. Sitting on the maroon sofa herself, Winnifred suddenly had complete sympathy for the dad and kids.

"These sofas are _heaven_," she moaned, her entire body sinking into a plush heaven. "These cushions had to cost a fortune."

"I guess it's a good thing those thug guys didn't break them too, huh?"

Then, rubbing the back of his crimson neck: "I mean that as a joke."

Lyle had to be the most awkward awesome boy Winnifred had ever met.

On the surface, he was absolute model material. Not many boys could pull off the messy-blond-hair-with-glasses look, but here it was on Lyle, right out of the pages of _GQ_. Even in a baggy white shirt, Winnifred could see the hint of defined muscles, and she would bet another three-thousand dollars that no baggy shirt on earth could hide his broad shoulders.

Did it make her a horrible person, complimenting Lyle on his body and complaining about his personality?

He kept failing at making jokes, as it they were some kind of life-or-death performance. Every time he started talking, it was with this slow cadence, like Lyle was quality-checking every syllable that passed his lips.

It was all summed up when Lyle returned with his wrist-arm-gadget thing and didn't know if it was okay to sit someplace with her. It was okay to ask a girl to sit down, Lyle. It didn't mean 'I want to bury my tongue in your throat' unless you went to college. And really, who did _that_ anymore?

Winnifred had taken the initiative and invited Lyle to sit. Even now, next to unassuming ole' Winnifred, he was still fumbling with the large plate resting on his lap. Lyle's trembling fingers kept screwing up the touch-screen gesture commands, apparently.

She ran a finger down the screen. "What's this button do?"

"Nothing. My gestures are all pre-recorded and I'm smarter than to—"

He watched Winnifred slowly pull her hand back. Lyle cleared his throat.

"It's called a Styler," he started. "It's the standard gear for a Pokemon Ranger."

"Hence, why you have one?"

"Hence, why I have one. I had to earn it, too. Practice multiple captures, take written tests…"

"Earn a license for it?"

And when Winnifred decided it was an unfair question: "So, get on with it. What's this Ranger Net deal?"

"Right! Ranger Net." Lyle's hands were still quiver-y, but he had enough control to scribble all over the screen with his finger. Screens opened and closed at a clip. "The RU countries are all small islands, right? So everyone and their mom would like to be a Pokemon Ranger, but they can't. What's a country to do?"

"Make being a Ranger incredibly selective and jack up the wage to reflect that?"

"No, and that's a terribly Unovan way of thinking." Then: "No offense."

"None taken." Note to self: keep Dawson and Dawson Politics out of your mind, Winnifred. God.

"RU realized, Rangers really get paid very little compared to professional Pokemon Trainers on mainland countries. Covenant Trainers…Never mind."

"What's the Covenant?" Winnifred asked.

"L-Like I was saying, professionals make professional money. Rangers do what they do to fight the good fight, to help people. That's the draw: not glory defined by money, but glory defined by good deeds."

"Sounds very noble of you, Lyle."

Lyle fought the spreading blush. "Ranger Net got developed so anybody could take on missions and complete them, within reason. You've got to register with the system, get a password and be finger-printed, then have your bank account registered with RU in case of fraud for missions you don't complete…And they're minor missions, too. Like rescuing Bidoofs out of trees…"

"That's all kind of complicated….What's a Bidoof?"

"A Pokemon that I personally think is a crime against nature. And yes, registering with Ranger Net _is_ complicated, which is why I'm using my Ranger authority to override the process and sign you in right…now." A satisfying 'bing' sound came from the speaker, right on cue.

Lyle edged the screen closer to her. He read the greeting: "Welcome to Ranger Net, Winnifred Lambert."

She watched the screen.

"I-I mean, I got your last name from the hotel directory. You've got a Permit Ball, so I just had to put you into the Unova League database with my credentials to get your legal information—"

"You're not a stalker, Lyle, it's fine. I get it." She scooted toward him and balanced the screen on their thighs. Their legs touched, and he went still as stone. "Missions, missions…Oh, great. Aspartia Town mission request: 'Help find my dear Mareep!' Lame."

"What's lame about it? That person needs help."

"Well, yeah, but there's no action in it. Where's the good stuff, with thousand-dollar bounties for winning the day?"

Winnifred played back her own voice. "You're right, that _is_ a Unovan thing."

"Told you so."

…

Unovan or not, anybody could appreciate being paid three hundred dollars for the day. That was enough for a shiny new Pokeball for Zella—if Winnifred had that stupid license—or enough for a Potion _and_ to have a hundred bucks left over for snacks.

The missions all had that kind of paycheck attached, too. If Winnifred accepted as many missions as she could, she actually stood a chance of paying her uncle back.

"Make no mistake, he'll still rip my balls off and put them where my eyes go, and rip my eyes out and put them where my balls go. I'll pay him back, but that doesn't change that I let thugs attack his pride and joy."

"Vivid imagery there, Winnifred."

"I liked it quite a bit," she said cheerily, squeezing her backpack straps.

Neither of them owned vehicles, and today's destination was several hours out on foot. The only option was to ride the monorail, like normal people. Lyle was again uncomfortable sitting next to her, but the presence of a fat bag of muffins changed that.

"You get these for free?" Lyle asked in between bites of his blueberry muffin.

"My roommate's parents own the bakery," Winnifred explained, sipping her hot chocolate. "I'm the first roommate she's had that wasn't an egotistical maniac with a personal vendetta against being quiet after ten o'clock. You know, they're surprisingly rare to find in this town."

"You don't say."

"No, I didn't. What were we talking about?"

And when Lyle stalled out harder than Winnifred's career options after school (which was a whole 'nother story): "Ever been to Flocessy Ranch before?"

Lyle shook his head.

"The Trainers that start here, it's their proving ground. Everyone gets a Mareep or a Riolu or something after passing through. And the Mareep I understand, since they're supposedly common in Johto, and we have perfectly fine Blitzles here, right?"

"But Riolu evolve into Lucario…"

"And Lucario have Mega Evolutions now, and it just gets out of whack." Winnifred rubbed her thumbs along her hot chocolate cup. "For a while, people got mad at Aspartia Town trainers. Called it an unfair advantage, or whatever."

Lyle held up a hand.

"You may speak, Lyle," Winnifred said teasingly.

"For someone without a license, you seem to know a lot about Pokemon Training."

"I know more than someone just out of Trainer School does, but if you put me next to someone who passed the test, I'm pretty sure they'd know more than I do."

"Based on what criteria?"

In deadpan: "They passed the test, Lyle. I didn't."

"Passing a test doesn't make someone a genius. A-and I'm sure if you took the test, you'd be fine. It's easy. You just have to show you know how to use a Pokeball—"

"How to make it minimize and maximize, open and close, proper way to hold it, proper way to _throw_ it in a battle versus in a wild capture, how to return a Pokemon to it, and then finally battle a proctor to show you know how to issue commands properly. That would be the Trainer License Exam, in a nutshell."

Lyle's eyes searched her face. It felt strange to Winnifred; people generally glowered at her from the hotel desk, if they were even watching her at all. Lyle's brown eyes were looking for treasure on her skin.

"You've taken it before," Lyle said.

_Duh._

"What happened? It's nothing to hide, people goof up their first test all the time. Did you—"

"Mind if we don't get into it right now?" Winnifred said a little too quickly. "Here, eat another muffin."

Lyle did as he was told. He searched her once more, and then they were silent the rest of the ride.

...

"I never thought anyone would really reply to that thing. We don't have Rangers in this part of the world, right? I hadn't thought I had already gone senile…"

Lyle held up a hand to reassure the ranch manager. Winnifred wondered if it was to show off the official-and-super-shiny Styler, too. "I assure you, sir, we are here on Ranger authority. We accepted the request with the desire to help, nothing more."

That and the money. Winnifred kept her Unovan sensibilities quiet.

The ranch manager, a grizzled man old enough to be their grandfather at _least_, hung his thumbs on his straining belt. "If you're really interested, you kids should know. That Mareep is a bit of a troublemaker. Got her in a Wonder Trade from Sevii Islands."

"She came a long way," Lyle offered.

"A long way, but that doesn't give her the right to shock my ranch hands every chance she gets. We had to fire the only one the little thing _didn't_ try and fry to death. Keep that in mind: never hire townies."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lyle said.

"So, yeah. She doesn't have a name, but she's only about two months old. Can't have wandered off the property. Get her back by the end of the day, you'll get your reward."

"Thank you, sir," Lyle said. "We're on the job."

The old man returned to his home. The house loomed over Flocessy Ranch and, even in the late morning, cast a long shadow over the verdant grass and lumbering trees. The handful of smaller houses—garages converted into stables—caught Lyle's eye. Winnifred had seen them before. It was funny how small Aspartia Town was, when she thought about it.

"I know how we're going to do this," Winnifred said.

"Leave it to me," Lyle said. "I _am_ a Ranger, you know."

Winnifred folded her arms. "Right, I forget. Please, enlighten me with your Oblivian ways."

Lyle hadn't seen the challenge coming. "They're not Oblivian, they're protocols taught to all Ranger School third-years upon award of their—"

"_I_ was going to ask for your license," Winnifred said. "We need my Blitzle for this."

Lyle's hand goes to his back pocket and lingers. "I can't authorize you to battle."

"Right, I'm going to battle someone here." She held her arms out. "See any evil underground goons?"

"Point taken." He pulled the laminated card from his worn brown wallet.

Winnifred reached out to take it, and Lyle's hand dropped the card into her palm and fled back into its pocket. "Nice picture," she said. "Square black frames really weren't you."

Not that Winnifred was expecting a banter-y reply, but Lyle's silence still jarred her.

Winnifred reached into her bag. She flipped the ball in her palm to have it land with its card reader facing up.

"Here we go, Zella. Come on out," Winnifred said. She swiped the card and tossed the ball into the field. Her Blitzle materialized in white light, and the ball bounced back to her hand.

"Zella?" Lyle asked.

"Short for Blitzerella. She's my baby," Winnifred said. Zella trotted to them and electrified her horn, spraying blue sparks into the sky. "So, Mister Ranger. Here's my plan. We have Zella send out an electric current, and Mareep comes to us."

"So…minimal legwork and reserved resources during the operation. It's a smart play."

"Yeah, I thought so." To Zella: "Do me a favor, Z-stuff. Use Discharge, but give it ten percent, and shoot it through your hooves only. No fancy I'm-a-unicorn business. And _no_, those puppy eyes aren't going to work. This is work."

Zella shook her head and whinnied. She clapped her hooves on the ground, eyes closed. Then, standing on her hind legs, Zella's front hooves glowed blue, and she slammed them into the earth.

"I'm thinking she does that once every twenty minutes or so," Winnifred suggested. "What's the Ranger Union got to offer?"

"Nothing, actually. That sounds about right."

Winnifred heard the soft rustle of the tall grass around them.

She forgot how much she had missed this.

Mistralton City, for all of its gross suburban neighborhoods and upper-middle-class notions, still believed it took place in a semblance of nature. It had trees, it had wildlife, it had wild Pokemon. What was Aspartia Town, some crummy metal cage for washed-up humans?

Even Flocessy Ranch's existence admitted that Aspartia Town was an urban wasteland. Any real city has parks, has preserved nature walks and monuments and fancy trees that came with the land and went undisturbed. Aspartia Town decided to keep the ranch land to itself and go become a steel abomination on its own.

If Winnifred closed her eyes and just felt the strong breeze through her curls, it was almost like watching the planes take off back home...

"I need your help, Winnifred Lambert."

Her eyes shot back open. Nothing but blue sky.

"Hey, a last name. We're back to being formal?" Then: "Wait, were we ever formal?"

Lyle didn't laugh. His dim, shy boy face was unmoving. Stern. Immovable.

"I was assigned to Aspartia Town because there is a man participating in the Underground who is wanted for multiple criminal offenses. He partook in the Shadow Pokemon incidents in Orre, but has since stolen technology. We traced it back to Unovan territory, and eventually, to Aspartia Town itself."

"Shadow Pokemon? I thought that was a joke. 'Oh man, I can't feel my Trainer's love, I'd better turn evil.'"

"Believe me, Winnifred Lambert. This is no joke."

Zella slammed her hooves back into the earth. No wonder Lyle was awkward all the time: he was waiting to get her alone. It sounded just like a creeper…stupid Mirelle and her stupid correct hunch.

"You've got connections to the Underground. As an official, I am asking you to help me."

Winnifred wrung her hands. "Help you…how? I've seen a lot of movies, and let me tell you, I'm not a fan of being the hot young bait."

Lyle huffed. So he did have a sense of humor, even in I'm-an-official mode. "I need your connections. He calls himself the Metal Arm."

"Huh."

"We've run his bank statements, we know his address and we know he's got influence in the Underground scene. But since we're on Unovan territory, legal red tape keeps Ranger Union from launching an offensive."

"That's where you come in," Winnifred suggested.

Zella stomped the ground once more. By now, Winnifred felt the currents vibrate outside of her sneakers.

"Tell me this: do I have enough legal rights to ask a question?" She held up a finger. "Just one question."

Lyle nodded. "We're just talking..."

"Is this why you've been in my hotel for the last few weeks?"

Lyle blinked. "Come again?"

"Is this why you saved me yesterday? Or why you messaged me from your room and got so chummy with me? Because you know about me and Michael?"

"Who's Michael?"

Winnifred threw her head back. "Come _on_, Lyle. Drop the act. I get it, it's a cop thing." Quickly: "Yeah, yeah. You're not a cop. But it's a cop thing. You get close to the witness, make her trust you because you're a charming guy despite being awkward as eighth grade prom, and then bring out how you've got dirt and she doesn't have a choice in the matter."

And finally: "Am I under arrest, Lyle?"

The façade cracked in half. Lyle's hands went up. "Not at _all_. God, no. That was not my intention."

"Really."

"Really-really."

Winnifred pursed her lips. They stood there for what felt like an eternity. She wondered, if the man from the ranch watched them, he probably figured they were a couple getting into a spat. Though couple spats didn't end with government arrests.

Unless you were a high-powered lawyer. Misfortune with the opposite sex: something Winnifred sincerely hoped her father hadn't passed on.

The two heard a small, endearing cry from the woods. Zella sent a charge out once more, and the Mareep revealed itself, stumbling out of the foliage and approaching the strange Pokemon with caution. Winnifred had to admit, the young thing was adorable. The Mareep still had its first coat of wool, with its porcelain color that faded as it aged. Winnifred was a fan of Poke-Metaphors, what could she say?

"There you are, little fella," Winnifred cooed. She reached out to pet it. The resulting shock sent her hand flying back.

"Let me help," Lyle suggested. He started fiddling with his Styler screen.

"Nobody asked you to," Winnifred shot.

The Styler's tip shot from Lyle's wrist mount. It flew around the Mareep carefully.

"This calms it down," Lyle explained. "When I'm on a field mission, I use my Styler to get Pokemon to help me in this manner. It's similar to the premise of Pokemon Training, but without the actual ownership aspect."

Winnifred remained quiet. The Styler shot back into the holster and Mareep waddled to Lyle's feet.

The ranch manager hadn't expected the two of them to find the missing Mareep, clearly. Winnifred and Lyle had to wait at the door for the man to bring the three hundred dollars—the ad specified cash—to his guests.

"Keep Ranger Net in mind when there's something that needs doing!" Lyle said, his voice dripping with genuine enthusiasm. It made Winnifred's eyes roll into her head. The ranch manager closed the door on them, and in one motion, Winnifred took the bills from Lyle's hand and stuffed his license in his back pocket.

"You could have just asked. The money was yours, Winnifred."

She held the Permit Ball out and returned Zella. Winnifred wanted to let her Pokemon run a little while longer, but the plans changed. _I'll pay you back_, she promised. Then: _not in bills, though. These are Uncle Howard's. _

Winnifred walked ahead of Lyle as they returned to the monorail station. Lyle could have found it on his own. Winnifred wasn't about to let him try and edge his way back into his good graces anyway.

Yeah, her family was a dysfunctional mess. They did teach her one thing: before severing creepers from your life, make sure they have no reason to come back. For closure and whatever.

They stood alone on the train platform. The late afternoon sun bathed Lyle in orange.

"Hilbert Tower," she said.

"Who's Hilbert?"

Winnifred faced him. "Not the hero, the building. If you want Michael, or the Metal Arm as he's apparently known transnationally, you want the Hilbert Tower. He's in the penthouse, top floor. Everyone who gives the tiniest of a crap about Pokemon knows where to find him, you didn't need to hunt me down for that."

"I didn't hunt you down. I told you, I'm here on a mission. I was placed here."

"Uh-huh. There's no coincidence why your boss put you in the same place as me?"

Lyle searched her again. God. Now wasn't the time to feel all tingly at a boy, estrogen. "Is there a reason they would?" He asked. "Put you near me, I mean. N-not that I'm trying to make you admit to anything illegal you did, because I have no idea _what_ you're talking about, but that's what officials are supposed to say when they want the witness to hang themselves, I'm just being honest. Trying to be."

Stupid awkward Lyle.

The train's screech sounded in the distance.

Winnifred searched Lyle right back. Reclaiming the male gaze or whatever. "They really didn't tell you."

Lyle shook his head.

Winnifred mulled over telling him the truth. If tonight was going to be as awful as it looked—it wasn't like she could just take her money, Winnifred needed Ranger Net for another _twenty-seven-hundred dollars_—then Lyle deserved to know…

The train rushed toward the platform. A cursory glance revealed crowded cars. Countryside workers going home to their shoebox-sized apartments in the big city. Er, town.

The doors zipped open. Winnifred stepped on, and Lyle followed.

"Lyle, question."

"Winnifred, answer."

"I get that you're not from around here, or even from the Unova, so don't take this like some great cultural insensitivity, but…do you really not know about Hilbert?"

…

Team Plasma was set to take over the world.

"Because let's be real. If you live here, you think Unova _is_ the world."

The heir to Team Plasma, known only by the Alias 'N', believed that Pokemon were being enslaved by humans. We were their captors, forcing the defenseless creatures to fight for our will, power our technology, and be the cause of multiple global conflicts. N knew how to strike back: awaken the Legendary Pokemon Reshiram to lead an uprising.

"Essentially a Fire God, for reference," Winnifred explained.

Along the way, N met another Trainer. Hilbert was another kid, the same age as N, going about his business. Getting gym badges, beating other Trainers, catching Pokemon and being pretty darn normal as far as Red wanna-bes go.

"Red! I know that guy."

"Everybody does, he's Pokemon Goku."

"What's a Goku?"

"Moving on," Winnifred groaned.

Hilbert and N battled a few times, but not because Hilbert had some generic desire to beat the evil conspiracy team. At least, not after the first fight with N. Hilbert saw the good in Pokemon Training, saw how people and Pokemon grow by knowing and fighting alongside one another.

"For the record, I am a firm believer in destiny," Winnifred said.

While Hilbert made his way the Elite Four, N had moved to take over.

"He resurrected some old dungeon castle thing. I don't know, it was really weird. Like a floating sand castle, but evil."

"They don't teach this story in school much, do they?"

"Moving _on_."

Hilbert, along with the other Unovan Gym Leaders and Hilbert's own motley crew of sidekicks, battled their way through the castle. Hilbert found N and demanded he stop the madness before it got out of hand.

"Because again, Unova is the world and N was about to take over."

N managed to resurrect Reshiram. The two would be unstoppable.

"But as luck would have it, Hilbert showed Zekrom, the _other_ Legendary Dragon from Unova, that Pokemon Training was a pretty cool endeavor. Hilbert and N battled it out, and Hilbert saved the day."

"What happened to N and Reshiram?" Lyle asked.

"Nobody knows. Nobody really cares, either. I mean, Hilbert's been missing just as long, but we miss him like crazy. Here, check out the window. We'll pass Hilbert Tower in a minute."

The train had dropped off most of its passengers. Lyle and Winnifred took up the window bench; Winnifred stretched her leg along the cushion, and Lyle simply spread his limbs out.

"You really think he's gone?" Lyle asked. The sun had begun setting, and the skyscrapers blocked it out every few moments. She didn't answer, and when Lyle glanced over, she was giving him a dagger stare.

"Come on, Lyle."

"Come on…what?"

"I know there's something going on. Hilbert didn't just disappear. Every other country has heroes. Last I checked, Brendan hadn't just up and fallen off the Hoenn radar."

Lyle clicked his tongue. "You really like conspiracy theories, Winnifred Lambert."

"The formal voice does not deter my skepticism. There are secrets. That's just the world we live in. There it is, by the way."

The Hilbert Tower was an utter hulking monolith.

Taking an entire city block, and extending to the height of any two other buildings, the Hilbert Tower didn't shine, it glistened. The tower stretched straight upward for most of its length before converging into a domed top. The upper half's glass windows revealed extensive staircases and walls of artwork. Bodies moved for the exit, and only a privileged few resided at the very top, overlooking the world.

The train bellowed: "Next stop: Hilbert Tower."

Winnifred pulled herself up and leaned on the handrail.

This had to be a sign that Aspartia Town wasn't for her. Townie drama.

Cross-national, crazy illegal townie drama.

"Before we go in there, you should probably know why I'm so mad. And not even at you, just at whatever my life is today."

"You don't have to tell me," Lyle assured. "It's not pertinent to the mission."

Oh, yes it was.

"The _mission," _Winnifred parroted. "What's your plan, you'll go in there and just arrest the guy? In the middle of his stronghold?" Winnifred banged her head on the closed door. "Believe me, Michael's probably been expecting you. He likes to think he knows everything. Metal Arm…that's just so _him_."

Lyle stood as the train slowed. "I don't understand."

"Of course you don't, Lyle. You're a sweet guy who stays in his room, plays by the rules and avoids drama." She turned to Lyle, but didn't dare look at him. "Do me this favor. Promise me you won't arrest him. Not yet."

"What is it with you and not getting people arrested?" He said jokingly. "Criminals don't need you protecting them."

"It's not for them. I'm protecting you."

The train pulled to a stop.

Winnifred took a breath. "Michael and I used to date. Thought you oughta know."

The doors pulled open. Winnifred moved onto the platform, with Lyle following behind.

* * *

I forgot how much I enjoy writing.

You guys know what to do. Review if you'd like, and thanks a bunch for reading.


	5. Only I

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

Only – Part 1

-Lyle-

Was this necessarily a betrayal?

Lyle didn't want to think so. Pokemon Rangers hold themselves up to the ideal, and moving up in the chain of command requires adamantine notions of justice, as well as respect for humanity. Lying to underlings broke both of those codes. Sending Lyle to a mission without giving him all of the information counted under the 'withholding certain truths' category of lying, but if it looks like a Psyduck and walks like a Psyduck, it's a Psyduck.

If boarding him up in a hotel where the front desk girl used to date his target looked like a Psyduck and talked like a Psyduck...

There was an obvious motive. It wasn't a mystery.

Lyle knew going in that his mission had a certain reverse-nepotism element to it. Screwing up one of the last recovered Guardian Sign missions tends to get you sent far, far away. Hell, he was surprised he hadn't gotten fired and thrown out the door bar-style.

But to send him here without all of the information…Were they trying to get him killed?

Lyle unbuckled the Styler from his wrist. He pulled Winnifred to a stop, restraining her by her backpack strap.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking your advice." He unzipped the bag and stuffed the Styler inside, purposely moving too fast for her to complain about the breach of privacy. "Objective change. We're doing recon."

"You mean _you're_ doing recon."

"My objective changed, not yours," Lyle said with a sarcastic smile. "I still need you to show me around."

"I'll be recognized so fast, it'll make your head spin."

She had a point. If this Michael really was all he had been talked up to be—

"But I did say I'd take you here," Winnifred continued. "Besides, I'll definitely be doing more Ranger Net missions. This is like my up-front favor."

"Fair enough," Lyle said.

His arm felt bare without the Styler.

They left the train platform and stepped directly into Hilbert Tower. Lyle remembered Ranger HQ and its holographic globe in the lobby, along with its state-of-the-art computer screens, waterfalls, and foliage. Where the globe would be instead stood a bronze statue of a young man, tall enough for his baseball cap to reach the second story balcony. The boy's short hair, jacket, and cargo pants had been rendered meticulously, right down to the zippers.

"He seems friendly," Lyle said. "Nice house you've got here, M-mister Hilbert."

When he got home—if he ever got home—he'd take classes to get rid of that stutter. It made him so _not_ awesome.

Winnifred started for one of the many escalators. Lyle didn't follow at first. The grandeur of Hilbert's statue included the boy's fingernails, his handful of acne scars and even his shoes had a brand and noticeable scuffs. Oblivia had her own heroes, just like every other country, but none of them received such reverence.

Lyle never wanted a tower and a sculpture. He could climb the staircase to heaven and punch God in the face, and he still didn't want a tower and a sculpture. Who did?

He shook off the Hilbert-induced hypnosis and started after the head of hazelnut curls. She leaned against the rubber railing as they ascended.

"Before you ask," she started, "Yes, Michael is nine years older than me. And yes, he's rich and snobby when he feels like it. I'm not defending it."

"Nobody's asking."

Ignoring him: "I had just moved to town, and I was lonely, and I didn't have Mirelle yet, and Aspartia Town is like a gazillion-square-feet of solitary confinement."

Lyle remained silent.

"He found me at an Underground match—which, by the way, took forever for me to work up the courage to finally go to—and unlocked my Permit Ball for me."

And with a distant look: "Michael was the first person in this lousy town to believe in me."

Winnifred turned to watch the top of the escalator, some four stories up. The city lights danced in the young night, just on the other side of the tower windows. Lyle rubbed his bare wrist.

He hadn't seen real stars in forever, Lyle realized. Even if he hadn't stayed inside his hotel room for the better part of half a month, he wouldn't have seen them anyway. Aspartia Town was the kind of place so bright, it turned the black sky violet and could be seen from satellites in space. The stars weren't above him, like they were back home. The stars were here, gleaming as Lyle ascended behind a strange girl.

Flocessy Ranch, and then Hilbert Tower. How much beauty had he missed out on, in such a short time?

Enough waxing philosophical, Lyle.

What the hell was his plan?

Lyle didn't have a plan going in, and without his Styler, he most certainly didn't have one now. Even if this Michael the Metal Arm fellow beat the snot out of him and broke his Styler, it would alert Ranger HQ and start a larger investigation. And if he had backed out…he'd be right where he started. Like putting your hand into boiling water just to make sure it was hot—which no sane person did—Lyle was going toward the danger, just to feel like he was doing something. The requisite burn was unavoidable.

The escalator ended on the forth-story balcony. Each balcony wrapped around the entire floor, creating a kind of open-air structure. Lyle felt it was more of a vertical tube. One could line the lobby floor with explosives, and he wouldn't be surprised to find more layers of the tower, boring straight to the world's core.

The thin carpet deafened Lyle's clumsy steps. The expensive air-conditioner smell stung his nostrils.

"It's this way," Winnifred said. She gestured down one of several corridors.

She was so still, she might as well have been sculpted there, too.

Like something inside her had changed. A switch had been flipped.

-Winnifred-

This was bad. SO bad.

But this is what Lyle wanted, right? He had a mission, and this was how she could help. How was she supposed to say no? _Sorry, bucko, but your concrete favor by letting me use Ranger Net isn't good enough for my abstract favor of my admittedly-useful connections. _

_Connections that will probably end very badly for everyone involved, but hey, that's networking for you. _

She willed her kneecaps to stop shaking. Willed her eyes to keep from going red and teary from fright, willed her muscles to keep from rocketing over that balcony.

Winnifred had battled countless thugs—okay, more like somewhere in the twenty-to-thirty count—and was afraid of an ex.

Michael had believed in her. He didn't think she was an idiot. Well, here she was…

"Winnifred?"

Outside of her head and back on Planet Earth, Lyle had taken a few steps toward her. He held his hand out.

"If you're not comfortable with this, we can go."

She shook her head. "I said I'd help you."

And how many times had she said that before?

"Yeah, you do…but…" Lyle clicked his tongue. "To tell you the truth, I don't know what I'm doing here."

-Lyle-

"I don't know what I'm doing here, I don't really have a plan, and it's not like I even have an exit strategy," Lyle continued. "I get that the guy I'm supposed to arrest is here. I get that, but I don't like…this."

"Like what?"

_Like how you went from bold, brave Alice in Wonderland to some shattered, wounded person. _

"We can go," he said. "Right now, if you want."

That's it, Lyle. Keep it on her. Focus on keeping the civilian safe, because there's nothing more terrifying than seeing the person trained to protect you worried that they might be overpowered.

He was an awful liar, though. And he knew it.

_Like how if I go upstairs, I'll probably get you hurt or worse, and I'll bet you ten bucks I won't be walking out. Chalk it up to past experience of not knowing what the hell you're dealing with. _

His mouth shook with each syllable.

He kept his arms dangling, exemplifying discomfort with his setting.

Lyle had to be brave. But if he lost Winnifred's eye contact, he'd be sunk. So he held on like a vice.

"Getting you home. Does that sound like a good idea to you?"

Winnifred raised her head, then lowered it, slowly. Then again and again, rapidly. Crazy fast and not fast enough.

She wasn't going to take his hand, Lyle knew. He held it out before he knew what he was doing. It was procedure.

It worked in evacuation missions, and usually with kids and the elderly. With terrified strangers. Not with girls who seem to have more to them with each second you know them.

She wasn't just FrontDeskSupport, and she was someone who tried to fight thieves with her own strength.

A girl like Winnifred would never—

-Winnifred-

Lyle's hand was warm, like her bed and her comforter and her stuffed Mudkip back home in Mistralton City.

His fingers were just as bony as they looked, but the hardness of them gave her focus. Enough focus to push Michael out of her head, _just enough_ to put one foot back in front of the other, to follow Lyle back to the escalator and get out of here before she broke.

Winnifred could weather a call from home. She could weather being broke and on the street, she could weather old men trying to touch her…but she couldn't get any close to Michael than she was, right now.

And he was _only_ an ex.

_Only an ex. _It was like saying a nuclear weapon was only a bomb. Like saying her parents were only angry with her, and her family was only a little dysfunctional.

Like saying Winnifred herself was only a little broken.

She held his hand all the way through the lobby, back into its monorail station, through the turnstile and onto the platform. Lyle had respected their shared hush the entire time. Once or twice his hand twitched when his fingers adjusted. She had sweaty palms.

They sat on one of the uncomfortable steel benches. The monorail tracks remained still, but outside the station's glass shelter, Aspartia Town brimmed with life.

She just wanted to go home.

To wake up tomorrow with her feelings reset. To find Lyle at the hotel and enjoy the weekend taking missions, like today, and earning the money to pay for her damages. To prepare herself mentally, to not be so gung-ho about living her own way that she forgot her own fragility.

It came out in three words.

"I'm sorry, Lyle."

To the boy's credit, Lyle's response was ready. "You did nothing wrong. It was my fault, I shouldn't have brought a civilian into my business…"

"That just makes it worse," she said with a sardonic laugh. He called her a civilian, great. They had been partners back at Flocessy Ranch, but now she was a civilian.

A quick fear jolted her.

"Are you going to cut me off?" Winnifred asked, still hanging her head. She struggled to see through her bangs.

It took a moment to click. "I'll still let you take missions, Winnifred. I'll get it set up on your computer. You don't need me for that."

That wasn't what she meant to ask.

Take two. Voice, don't you dare break.

"Are you cutting me off from helping you?"

And before he could laugh in her face: "I said I would help you. I want to. Really, I do."

Great, now she was just plain scaring the boy.

Lyle spoke slowly. "If this is about paying me back for anything, please, don't think you owe me. I'm used to going it alone," he said with an ending giggle. "I'm the Lone Ranger. Pokemon version."

God. The boy giggles.

It wasn't about owing him, though. It was the principle of the thing.

She said she would help, and then at the very first moment, she backed off. How many of Winnifred's life stories would end that way, with her backing out of an important moment because of her feelings?

Because she was afraid?

Because she was always allowed to be afraid?

Look at her. She was here at a monorail stop shaking, and Lyle's running his thumb over the back of her hand. Did he have to be so touchy-feely?

"It's funny," he started. "I don't think you were supposed to help me."

Winnifred dried her tears with her other hand.

"Back home, I have to beat down a bunch of goons, eventually go after their boss, then a bunch of other bosses just like him, and _then_ I have a shot at the criminal mastermind."

"That's…well organized," Winnifred managed.

"W-well, it's a routine. And right now, I just came really close to the final boss. So what if I wasn't able to see the guy and get my…"

"Get your eyes ripped out and put where your balls go, and your—"

"That's the one," Lyle said. Winnifred even laughed. "I broke a pattern. I know where I'll end up at the end of this. It's a start, and it's something only you could have done."

The monorail wailed as it approached. They sat together and watched Aspartia Town melt into a galaxy of lights.

Winnifred felt the words.

Something only she could do.

…

Room 14: Are we still on for tonight?

Winnifred typed back so quickly, she was surprised her fingertips didn't fall off. She still felt Lyle's warmth between them.

FrontDeskSupport: Count on it!

FrontDeskSupport: =)

She was trying too hard. She knew it, too.

Winnifred had chewed the words over in her head. She didn't mind letting Lyle walk her home, and to be honest, she actually preferred it. Creepy-guy-with-tumbleweed-head-who-was-stalking-her aside, showing her chubby face in Michael's building was a death sign. What had she been thinking?

She shook her head, then slapped her cheeks.

How long was she going to chew herself out?

It all started the second she got home, the night of the Hilbert Tower Incident. (She was calling it that as a defense mechanism.) Mirelle had waited up for her to come back, and without even knowing what was eating her roommate, she knew the right thing to say.

There were plenty of You Did Your Bests, Whatever It Was, and more than a few ounces of Have Some Banana Bread, but Mirelle's last comment was the ultimate salve.

"Just let it be in the past," Mirelle had said. "If you keep bringing it into the present, it'll _be_ the present."

"Who taught you that?" Winnifred had asked.

"AP Philosophy."

"They _had _an AP Philosophy?"

"No," Mirelle beamed. "But it sounded nice, didn't it?"

Winnifred mumbled into her pillow.

"Yes, it _was_ a fib." Then: "You need some sleep. A few pretty words never hurt anyone."

A few pretty words never hurt anyone.

You did your best.

The Trainer License Exam is every year, you can do it again.

Nobody really cares if you didn't finish school because you wanted to be a Trainer, then flubbed that too and came away with nothing.

But at the same time: If you keep bringing up the past, it becomes the present.

Winnifred slipped Mirelle's parents a twenty and a request for a Thank You cake. They mocked offense at being paid and promised the most glorious affair ever seen from Moon Keepers Café.

And now she was going on another Ranger Net mission. It wasn't purely for her benefit, supposedly. The message had been waiting at her computer before she logged onto the hotel chat.

Room 14 (8:55AM): Got a mission straight from HQ. Could be a lead. Interested?

What she wanted to write:

FrontDeskSupport: Is my maniacal, abusive ex going to be there?

Or:

FrontDeskSupport: Winnifred Lambert is no longer available. We've fired all employees with zero backbone. New painting-breaking-prevention policy.

What she actually wrote:

FrontDeskSupport: I'm there if you want me to be.

Room 14: Bam. See you at 5!

The day passed sleepily enough. Another long-term resident asked where the paintings had gone. Winnifred batted her eyelashes and flashed her pearly whites during the lie about remodeling.

Mac had to snap at her, _twice_, as he headed home for the day. He murmured something about his being the concussed one, not her. Winnifred didn't hear it.

The first thing she seemed to hear was Lyle's landing on the bottom stair. Plain black shirt, pants, official-looking belt. Winnifred was up and shoving her backpack over the desk before the boy got a chance to wave.

-Lyle-

"You didn't bust it or sell it for parts, did you?" Lyle asked as he opened Winnifred's worn bag. The longer he looked at it, the more he felt like it wasn't his to cram things into. A person's bag has a history. Winnifred's Great Ball keychain and blacked-out 'Jansport' logo definitely had a few stories.

Hell, judging from last night, Winnifred herself had a few stories.

Lyle strapped the Styler to his wrist with one hand. "It looks about the same, but you never know. I hear there are unsavory characters in Aspartia Town."

He winked.

And when she only kind of smiled, Lyle wanted to shove his head back in his room, keep his body out in the hall, and slam the door _hard_.

He crammed the charisma back in the Bag of Unwanted Mannerisms and went back to the Bag of Businessy Things. "As I said, I've got a message from HQ."

"I noticed," Winnifred said. She climbed over the front desk instead of taking the actual exit path. "I wondered what was yelling at me all night."

"They called the hotel phone, too." He spoke fast, before Winnifred could ask why he didn't ask for the Styler back last night, so Lyle wouldn't have to explain that he wouldn't dare ask something from someone who looked straight catatonic. He also left out how his Supervisor ripped his ear off for letting his Styler out of his sight, but that was another issue. "There's been another robbery, similar to the one here."

"How similar?"

"Crazy similar. That Roy guy was there."

Winnifred tugged on one of the bag straps with both hands. And when she tilted her head up at him like that, Lyle felt the inevitable stutter come back.

_Go away, stutter. I need to be all official-like. _

"Roy," Winnifred repeated. They left the hotel and started walking. "Weird. Did he have beef with anyone else?" And when he laughed: "What's so funny?"

"As far as we know, he 'had beef'"—air quotes!—"With half of the people in the Aspartia Town Underground."

"But nobody knows who's in it. That's why it's called the Underground and not the Open Illegal Battle Frontier."

"We thought of that! The only thing connecting the robberies illegal records of Pokemon Battles from the Pokeballs of the victims involved."

"You can just do that?"

"Can just do…what?"

"You can just take Pokeballs and see what they were used for?"

Lyle recognized treacherous waters when he heard them. "The capability is in there. The UN made it clear that doing so requires plenty of paperwork to protect the individual's privacy." Then: "Why does it look like you don't believe me?"

"Because I don't. But anyway." She fanned her arms out. "Where are we going?'

Lyle brought up a city map on the Styler screen. "Your friend Roy's been hitting this neighborhood again. I didn't hear anything about it because locals like to take things into their own hands." Lyle didn't have to glare to her. "Someone finally reported him. Roy's extorting a single mom and her kid for fifteen thousand smackers."

Winnifred whistled. "I'm guessing no cops are coming. Courtesy of Michael and the Underground."

"What, is there something I should know?"

"Nothing traumatizing," she said. Lyle could have sworn that was a joke at her own expense. "Anyway, if the cops didn't get the message…"

"Oh, no. They did. They just ignored it. Lucky for us, my Styler has a connection to the local authorities."

Winnifred held up a hand. "You don't think this is connected to Michael, do you?"

"Actually, I'm banking on it. We show up at Hilbert Towers, I go and nearly arrest an Underground battler, and suddenly there's a spike in break-ins. Things don't just happen, Winnifred."

They turned onto a residential street. Lyle never got used to how people lived in the city, and after seeing his umpteenth apartment-building-with-streetfront-shopping, he was sure he never would.

"Can I help you?" The older woman said as she opened the door. Deep stress lines ran along her forehead, but her face had been adorned with old age's smile wrinkles. This was the right home: one where a family found itself in immediate, unforeseen, impossible trouble.

Why was it always money trouble?

Lyle stood in the doorway, shoulders back and voice broad. "I'm a Pokemon Ranger, ma'am. I'm investigating a police report?"

The woman's tired eyes went wide.

"There have been a string of incidents," Lyle said, choosing his words carefully. "My partner and I were hoping you may have some leads."

-Winnifred-

His _partner?_

-Lyle-

"I'm sorry, officer, but you have the wrong home." The woman slowly edged the door closed. "No trouble here. It's quite the mundane building. Families and the like."

Winnifred switched her focus between the two.

Without missing a beat, Lyle continued: "Ma'am, I have to inform you that falsifying police reports is a felony." Not that he had the authority, but who cared about details? "This _is_ 228 North Olympic, Apartment 5."

"That it is, officer."

"And you _are_ Miriam Kott, correct?"

She blinked at the pair. The woman tilted her head. Trying and failing to make a lie or an excuse. She even looked up to the left. Bingo.

Lyle folded his arms and waited.

"That's…that's the previous tenant. I have her address, I can give it to you if—"

"Mom, stop." The girl emerged from the apartment hallway, still wearing her uniform from school. It was her mother, time-shifted by several decades. "I made the report."

Miriam's mother turned on her daughter. "How _dare_ you."

"We can't keep living like this," Miriam said. "I don't want to live like this."

"Like _what? _I keep a roof over your head, I keep you fed, I keep you in school, I—Officer," she turned to Lyle, the anger not yet drained from her features, "My daughter jumped to conclusions. There is nothing to worry about, I assure you—"

"I've seen you before," Winnifred said to Miriam.

-Winnifred-

Short, petite, straw-haired Miriam wasn't a regular at night. She wasn't allowed to be. The Underground had a strict 'no spectators' policy. If your Pokemon couldn't bust a few other Pokemon faces in at the first match, you got two more to rectify it. Otherwise, you were out.

Winnifred had seen poor Miriam's fight.

"How's your Plusle?" Winnifred asked. Miriam and her mother regarded her with the same silent awe. "I remember he was pretty fast. It was impressive, actually."

That was one way to describe a one-sided match against a Druddigon. Plusle was fast. It certainly wasn't strong.

"I-I don't have her anymore," Miriam managed. Her eyes went glossy at the memory. Then, with a cracked voice: "Roy tried to…"

"That's _enough!" _Miriam's mother shrieked. "Both of you, out of my home! I'm sorry, Mister Ranger, but you are not wanted at this residence and—"

"Roy says if we don't pay him, he'll hurt her."

"Miriam, I swear to _God—"_

"He says I owe him more money than I do, and he came and took her and he beat us—"

"Miriam!"

"Mom, _shut up!" _

Winnifred felt Lyle's breath catch. Miriam's outburst shook her tears out onto the carpeted floor.

Miriam's mother approached her daughter. Winnifred wondered if the woman was flipping a coin: smack my child across the floor, or comfort her?

Winnifred sighed. That just said wonders about her own mother, didn't it?

Ms. Kott held Miriam tight, letting the girl's sobs fall on her shoulder. Her expression pleaded. "The men said if we told the police, they'd come back."

The police weren't coming back. Better to let sleeping woman-and-child-battering-gangsters lie.

Stupid Aspartia Town.

"I'm not a cop," Winnifred said carefully. "But I can help you. Miriam, if you want your Plusle back and this Roy guy put _under_ the jail…Well, my friend there would do the legal stuff. But your Plusle, that's something I can do."

Not something _only_ she could do. It wasn't confronting Michael.

It was a start.

* * *

I really, really like these two kids.

Thanks for reading, and thanks double if you've read up this far. Thanks triple for reviewing!


	6. Only II

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

Only – Part 2

-Lyle-

They waited for the sun to set.

"Here's what I'm thinking," Winnifred said over the train's whine, "if I go in with Mirelle, they won't think anything's up. I do it all the time. They _know_ Mirelle."

Lyle dug into the paper bag between them. It was part of Winnifred's idea to go back to Mirelle's parents' bakery, raid the day-old muffins and cookies, and then ride the train to kill time. The other part was to stop Lyle's stomach from screaming bloody murder.

Lyle had been skeptical, but sitting in the very front car did have its perks: people would rather scrunch up in the middle cars than run to the empty front one. An empty train meant nobody eyeing their snacks, meaning _food_.

Though when he registered Winnifred's idea, he almost gagged.

"Not a fan of cran-raisin?" Winnifred asked, popping a chunk of blueberry scone between her lips.

"I'm not letting your roommate help us," he said.

"Why not? She's done this before—"

"It was illegal before. It still _is_ illegal."

"Huh. Question. Scale of one to jail, how illegal _is_ you letting me battle?"

"I'm not letting you battle."

"Then humor me."

Lyle thought back to the handful of firings and outright sackings he'd seen. "The Aspartia Underground is notorious for showing up in headlines nationwide, I'm from another country entirely, and I'd be breaking one nation's law to let you break another's." He brushed crumbs from his shirt. "Probably an eleven. You going in and challenging Roy could land me in a federal prison."

"Well, that was _my_ plan. What's your suggestion, partner?"

Lyle gagged again. He mentally apologized to the muffin. _It's not you, it's me._ "Partner?"

"You called me that before. Back at Miriam's place."

…Great.

For the record? Winnifred never struck him as one of those girls who knew she was pretty. Those girls are insufferable and back home, they ended up married with kids before other people finished college.

Winnifred made him laugh. She also batted her eyelashes and had a set of inescapable doe eyes. She got away with calling herself 'partner' because she had the personality to will it, not because she was gorgeous.

If Lyle could backtrack with his boss…

"If I didn't call you that, then Ms. Kott would have every right to throw us out," Lyle said coolly. "As it was, if she had asked us to produce badges, we would have been sunk."

"Oh."

"N-not that I don't appreciate you wanting to help." She got him out of his room, and was the only thing keeping him invested in the outside. But you can't tell someone that. "I do. But I'm risking enough bringing in a civilian."

"I get it, Lyle. It's fine, cut the legal talk." Then: "I'll just go talk to him. I'll say I'm willing to fight him for it, but he won't want to get wrecked in the ring again. He'll hand Plusle over, and it gives you time to get another lead on what Michael's up to while we're there."

The train crossed into the suburbs. Blocks of squat one-story homes and winding, tree-lined roads as far as you could go.

"The Styler can't come, though." Winnifred pulled the top of her muffin off and ate it in one go.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Roy will recognize it. He knows your face. Believe me, people in the Underground never forget a face."

"Then how is this plan supposed to work?" Because, Lyle admitted, Winnifred's plan did make sense. "We go in unarmed and asking for Roy, they recognize us, and then it's mission fail?"

Winnifred pursed her lips. "What do you mean, 'us'?"

…

-Winnifred-

Central Park didn't clear out once the sun went down. Police hounded the scene, picking up unsavory characters left and right. Couples and children were free to be you and me.

The police didn't dare account for the area beneath the Central Park Lake.

"Aspartia Town developed the park around the same time as Hilbert Towers," Winnifred told Lyle. "The Kruyem Incident put us on the map. We had a Trainer involved and got crazy famous. It happens, I guess."

"So Aspartia Town modernized and built a tunnel toward a literal hive of scum and villainy."

The western side of Central Park featured a gated-off cave leading to the underside of the lake. Maintenance workers came down to make sure the pipes leading to the sewers still worked, or to check on the several bug Pokemon that lay nests in the din. A network of eight-foot-tall tunnels leading to an open area directly under the water.

Really, what did the city _think_ would happen?

Winnifred felt the Styler's weight in her backpack. Roy never forgot a face, but he was also smart. If Lyle didn't walk in like he was about to bust them all, he wouldn't say a thing.

"He won't even call you a narc," Winnifred had explained. "We get cops and politicians watching the fights all the time. Just look normal, and it'll be normal."

She wished she had picked a different word. Lyle's 'normal' was to spout protocol and tense up whenever she got within a foot of him.

The iron gate over the cave entrance already had the lock picked and dangling off the handle. Winnifred gave it the slightest push and the gate swung open.

"Hey, before we go in? Question."

"Answer," Lyle said. He was already moving like a robot. Did he forget he had elbow joints or something?

"About Ranger stuff…don't you have to announce that it's a mission? And do a cool pose and stuff?"

And when Lyle just stared back: "Like on TV. You jump in the air and strike a pose, and you're like, 'Mission: Start!'"

"That's not mandatory, if you're inclined to—"

"This whole thing here?" Winnifred waved her hand around him. "That's what I'm talking about. Loosen up! It's just the Underground. Just another mission." She walked back to him. "Come on, show me. How do we start a mission, Mister Ranger?"

Lyle couldn't fight the smile if he tried. His blond hair seemed to shine against the night.

"If you have to know, every Ranger makes up their own. B-but in Ranger School, they taught us this default one. It went…Spin around, hand on your hip, then thumbs-up. I think."

He tried it out slowly, like a dancer learning new moves. Winnifred followed the gestures. She flinched slightly as Lyle pulled his thumbs-up gesture from the back of his head, bringing his arm all they way over his body.

"Seems easy enough," Winnifred said. "So I do that one, you do yours, and then you just announce it's a mission, right?"

Lyle's reddening cheeks were _also_ illuminated against the moonlight. "They'll hear us down there. It'll jeopardize—"

"Stop that. Come on, you lead. Ready?" And when he wasn't standing beside her and facing the cave, arms ready: "Are we doing this, or are you gonna make me wait all night?"

Lyle hurried and joined her. In a voice that belonged to a man old enough to be their father, he bellowed: "Mission—"

Lyle kick-flipped into the air, landed in a crouch, threw up two victory fingers while Winnifred recited her own move—

"—Start!"

"Huh," Winnifred huffed. "That takes a lot out of you. Who knew?"

Then, tugging on her backpack straps: "You said it, Lyle. Mission: Rescue Plusle! Let's go!"

The light from the cave entrance guided Winnifred and Lyle for the first few minutes of the walk. The air around them grew heavy and humid.

She remembered coming down here the first time. If not for Michael's arm to steady her, she would have crashed, and at one point nearly shoved her foot onto a Venipede nest. Winnifred shuddered at the thought. She'd be traumatized for life.

"Lyle?"

"Yes, Ms. Lambert?"

"Here, take my hand."

"Why?" And clearing his throat: "Is that crucial to the mission outcome?"

"No, you idiot. There are Venipede nests down here. I almost put my foot right in one my first time."

They continued walking, but Winnifred's hand dangled in the space between them.

"Left turn up here," she said to the pitch-black darkness. Lyle still hadn't gone for it. She pulled her hand back—

-Lyle-

"Just so I don't lose you in here," he said. "Mission-within-missions are the worst."

Holding her hand was different from before. Forgetting that she wasn't lost in her own head, forgetting that they weren't (yet!) running with their tails between their legs, Winnifred's hand was softer. Calm, in control. Confident of where she was and where she was going.

He didn't run his fingers through her own, the way she had the previous night. Lyle held her hand the way he would hold anybody's hand, taking their fingers and their palm into his own. Her loose hold had their hands bouncing in one another, palms colliding with their different paces and tugging away when Winnifred took another abrupt turn.

A small light flickered up ahead. Shadows moved along the walls. What Lyle thought was the roar of water pipes was revealed as the roar of the audience, the commands of Trainers in the arena.

"Almost there?" He asked.

"Almost there," Winnifred said. "Nothing much to stumble on around here now."

She added: "Though I did skid my knee once."

"Sounds dangerous."

"A little, yeah."

Lyle finally let her go when they came to the arena audience.

-Winnifred-

Find Roy. Threaten the hell out of him. Get back Plusle. Easy as pie.

She pushed through the crowd, her chestnut locks finding themselves caught on all manner of bags and jacket zippers. A bonus of being tiny in a crowd of manly-men and professionals: being able to squeeze through small spaces, and being able to do it fast before someone got hands-y.

Winnifred took a fast glance behind her. Lyle was long gone, making the rounds and finding out what he could find out.

If he did something dumb, tonight would go downhill _fast_.

She shook it off. Thinking about anyone's performance but her own wouldn't end well, either. She followed the sounds of battle.

"Holy balls, that hurt!" A man beside her cheered.

Another one: "God. Poor guy ain't fluffy no more."

She heard the next ones. Blows raining down on something soft. Cries for mercy from the Pokemon's Trainer, who above all, knew better than to run into the ring. Winnifred kept moving. She emerged in at the front row of the audience.

The referee called it. "The winner is: Biker Roy and Lucario!"

Roy pounded his fists in the air. His familiar goon squad was behind him. Winnifred didn't like the guy before, and definitely hated him after he attacked Uncle Howard's hotel, but watching his family-beating hands pulse in the air, she crossed into another level of anger entirely.

That was before she saw the high school boy cradling his bruised, barely-breathing lump of a Micchino.

The mission was to be quiet about things. Get in, get Plusle and get out.

That was before finding a Pokemon beaten within an inch of its life, and Roy high-fiving his friends. Before finding out that he treated families the same way he treated Pokemon. No mercy. In this case, it was something Winnifred could get behind.

To be fair, he was already in the ring. There _was_ no plan. Winnifred made her own.

Mission: Put Roy's eyes where his balls go and his balls where his eyes go.

"Roy!" She yelled. And when she didn't hear: "Hey, Asshat Roy! I'm _talking_ to you!"

The audience clamor died down. It got so quiet, Winnifred actually heard Lyle swear under his breath. She watched all eyes go on her small, always-needing-to-lose-ten-pounds body.

Roy's posse tried to gab. He punched them in the arm to keep them quiet.

"Is that your response to everything?" Winnifred said, projecting her voice across the wide arena. Plumes of sticky Micchino fur dotted the ground. "Punch it and it goes away?"

Roy snapped his fingers. "Hotel girl! Long time no see! Where's your cop friend?"

"This is just me and you," Winnifred said. She made a point of taking her stance in front of the boy and his battered Pokemon. "I'm going to beat the snot out of your Lucario, and then you'll give me back that Plusle you stole."

If Lyle ran out into the ring to stop her then and there, Winnifred wouldn't be surprised in the least.

She counted to three.

When he didn't stop her, Winnifred reached into her backpack. She strapped on her fingerless gloves.

Roy ran a hand along his scalp. "I remember that one. Girl wanted another go in the ring. She had to pay up. She couldn't pay, and she _lost_…So I went and made good on the investment. I don't see what I did wrong."

"Beating up an elderly woman and nothing wrong." Winnifred spoke through her churning stomach. "Right.. So you'll give me that investment back when I beat you."

"Huh. See, there's a problem with that, Alice in Wonderland. I'm betting Plusle. What are you putting up?"

The first number that popped into her head. "Three thousand dollars."

And the crowd goes wild!

"You expect me to believe," Roy said slowly, "That you've got three thousand dollars, _cash_, in that bag of yours?"

"Depends. If I'm lying, are you going to beat me and my mom, too?"

The laugh track audience sounded once more. Winnifred even heard a few boos and hisses from the few individuals with souls.

The referee stepped in. "Who's your sponsor for the night?"

…Oops.

Lousy Permit Ball. Lousy Trainer License Exam…Which contributed to a lot of her problems, when she thought about it.

Who could bet on her? She had no money, and if she lost, she dragged someone else into her problems.

She could have asked Mirelle to volunteer her license…if Mirelle were here. And if Lyle used his to open her Permit Ball, he'd be an accomplice to battling. As he'd told her a gabillion times by now.

Besides, her sponsors took her prize money. There _was_ no prize money this time. No reason for anyone else to get involved.

Winnifred counted her options—

"Here. I'll do it."

She looked up at the man beside her.

The boy beside her.

The boy with the tumbleweed of hair and blue jacket.

He dug into his wallet and retrieved the license. "Same bet, by the way. Three thousand."

So. If she took the stalker-boy's license and won, he got…nothing out of it. And if she lost, he was on the hook for three-thousand dollars.

"The name's Nate, by the way," he said. He pulled a strand of unruly brown hair from his vision. "Thank me later." And a smile.

"Don't thank me yet," Winnifred said.

She reached into her bag once more and retrieved Blitzerella's Permit Ball. She remembered to zip the bag and put it back on her shoulders. Lyle's Styler cost more than money. Last but not least, Winnifred pulled her hair back into a ponytail and tied it with the hair tie she kept at her wrist. The band snapped back, loud and clear.

That one strand of hair flopped in front of her face.

All variables accounted for. It was up to her, now.

The referee held his hand high, straining over the crowd's desire for combat. He knew the fighters well enough to call it before the Pokemon were even out yet. "Biker Roy and Lucario versus Winnifred and Blitzerella! Win or lose, let's rock!"

Winnifred was too fast for Nate. She slid the Permit Ball's card reader along the license as it rested in the boy's lax hand. It fell out of his grip and the ball's lock turned green. She followed through and chucked it into the arena—

Totally chucked it the wrong way, would have been an automatic fail on a License Exam—

The flash of white cleared and Zella materialized, scraping her feet along the earth and ready for action.

"Lucario, Mach Punch!"

The blue Pokemon pulled back a paw and raced forward—

"Zella, Spark!"

It was too late to keep Zella from getting punched in the face. That was just a done deal.

Seconds before it connected, Zella began to glow yellow. She pulled in electric energy from her horn. Lucario struck just inches below it. The blow resonated along the cave walls. If it hurt Zella—which it did—it hurt Winnifred twice.

Lucario pulled its fist back and readied to strike with the other—still matted with gray fur, mind you—and failed. His arm cramped, and bad.

Paralysis from the electricity.

"Not bad," Nate said.

"I do try. Zella, discharge!"

Another distance move, and one that didn't need Zella to regain her bearings first. Zella continued charging her body, stacking the unused energy from the Spark attack onto the Discharge technique. Shifting from a dim yellow to a striking gold—

"Discharge Cancel—Thunder Fang!"

Lucario's arm moved again, the cramp vanished. Zella rushed to it, and without orders, Lucario acted on instinct—

Roy bellowed: "No! Don't you dare!"

Too late. Lucario shot its fist out to defend itself. Zella caught the fist in her mouth and bit down, hard. Lucario's wailed as the electric energy filled its veins, sending its muscles into convulsions.

Nate folded his arms and casually covered his mouth with a lax hand. The aroma of burning Lucario filled the tight, damp enclave and hung there, trapped in their tiny atmosphere.

Zella didn't let go until she was certain Lucario wasn't getting up any time soon.

She unclamped her jaw. Lucario sunk to the ground, the fight ripped out of him along with consciousness.

Was it mean? Yes. Humiliating for the sake of humiliation? A-yup.

Did that particular Lucario deserve to get roasted? Not really.

Did it make Winnifred feel good?

Oh yes.

The referee waited to call it. Winnifred didn't know what was taking him so long. Did he think the black smoke coming from the Lucario lump was a good thing?

He raised his hand slowly—

"Don't you even dare, Ref." Roy dug into his jacket pocket. He produced what seemed like a yellow star, chipped on the edges and worn down at the very tip, but glistening in the center.

Roy walked to his Pokemon casually, defiantly. Waiting for someone to stop him.

"T-that's against the rules!" The ref said, finally finding his voice. "Max Revives are not permitted in Underground exhibition matches!"

"Let Metal Arm tear me a new one, then."

"You're not his type," Winnifred quipped. She regretted it instantly. Not because it wasn't true, but because…well, did she really want to piss Roy off worse?

To be fair, it felt good.

Roy knelt beside his beaten Pokemon and pressed the Max Revive to its chest. The yellow star disappeared in a burst of golden light. Lucario was then back on its feet, bouncing on its legs and punching the air.

"Round two?" Winnifred asked. She twisted and cracked her neck; Zella trotted before her, legs grounded and horn charged. "If you haven't had enough punishment..."

"Not quite, Alice." He reached to his back pocket. "You're not getting that Pokemon back. All reclaimed debts go to Metal Arm. And I mean, why would anyone disobey him? He gives such great gifts. For example."

A black strap with a jewel hung in Roy's bulky grasp. The gem seemed to change colors the longer Winnifred watched it, going from blue to red to green and everything in between. "Ever seen a Mega Stone, schoolgirl?"

"Nope. Seeing as how they're not League-legal in Unova," she said simply. "Or anywhere else on this part of the planet."

"Funny thing about the law. Like with you and your Ranger friend the other day?"

The gem glowed a fierce green. Lucario tensed its muscles, its body glowed in a faint, fluid white light…

"The law favors the strongest one in the ring," Roy said. "That'd be me."

…She had ten, twenty seconds tops.

She'd seen a Mega Lucario before, watching battles online or on TV. Fast enough to make airline travel look dated, strong enough to level buildings on a whim. Zella could cancel and wavedash all she wanted; one blow and she'd end up a bag of broken bones.

Lyle could step in…and blow the entire mission, sack the Underground, and he would still need his Styler to do that.

Fifteen, ten seconds. Think, Winnifred. Think!

"Okay, I'm done," Nate said. "Roy, you're truly a gentleman and a scholar."

"Come again?"

Nate ripped a Pokeball from his belt. Winnifred hadn't them before, covered under the stranger's baggy blue jacket: two Pokeballs and a yellow Ultra Ball, lined up in a row on his belt. Right next to something Winnifred hadn't seen since school: a Pokedex.

The Pokeball seemed to open as it flew. An advanced technique: summoning a Pokemon in the air and having it land on strong haunches.

The light cleared, but not before the energy around Roy's fighter vanished. Its ears stood taller, the fur on its head had grown to dreadlocks, red war paint covered its face. It was out for broken bones.

Zella sized up her opponent. No point in running from what you can't outrun.

"Hope you liked your horsey, Alice. Lucario, Force Palm!"

Nate yelled with a seasoned warrior's intonation: "Don't think so. Rock Smash!"

A blue arm materialized from the Pokeball's white light and came down, _hard_. Mega Lucario had moved too quickly to stop its trajectory. Its entire upper body was caught in the blow, ground into the earth and held there in the rubble, struggling for breath.

The arm picked up its prey. Attached to it was a nine-foot-tall aquamarine behemoth. Warts covered its back and its pulsating thighs. The three fingers of its mighty hands could squash even a Mega Lucario in an instant.

"Seismitoad, hold him there," Nate said. The amphibian Pokemon nodded its head in agreement.

Since when did Underground Trainers bring, like, _actual_ Pokemon to fight? Where was Nate when she was stuck fighting Patrats and Darumakas and Woobats?

Roy had gone into conniptions. He stomped his feet and waved his arms as he shouted the foulest epithets in the English language. A gangster reduced to a toddler throwing a tantrum.

"Here's what's going to happen," Nate told him. "You'll hand over whatever the girl here is talking about. The fight happened, you got wrecked. It happens. Grow up."

"Grow up? You little snot—"

"Next up, I'll be reporting back to HR about how you're not even adhering to your own rules. Metal Arm doesn't like looking like a kingpin, and boy, do you make him look like one."

"What rules?" Winnifred asked. Not to rub it in, but asking questions had that effect.

"Oh, you didn't know? Roy here is in charge of this neighborhood's Underground. HR was wondering how he brought his debts in so much better than everyone else...Hitting women and children, Roy?"

Nate shook his head.

"And just a heads-up?" Nate snapped his fingers. Seismitoad dropped the Mega Lucario in the hole it created from the wrong end of the Rock Smash attack. "Don't bring a gun to a knife fight. Someone might have a bomb."

Winnifred had to hand it to the Underground. They knew when to keep their traps shut. She heard her own heartbeat in the silence. All eyes turned on Roy, the beaten former leader. Winnifred dared him to pull another Max Revive, just to have another shot at him.

Not that she would win. But it'd make her feel better.

Roy took out two Pokeballs. He held out the first and returned Mega Lucario to it with a beam of red light. The second he tossed across the arena. Winnifred caught it in her off-hand.

"That's what you came for," Roy said. He glared once at Winnifred, then twice as long at Nate. "Don't let me catch you on my turf, pretty boy."

"For the next twenty-four hours that it _is_ your turf? Certainly."

Roy backed away from the ring. He punched his cohorts in the arm, not to hurt, just to get their attention. The three of them disappeared into the crowd.

Winnifred felt familiar warm fingers tighten around her hand.

"So?" Nate asked the referee. "Who's up next?"

…

-Lyle-

He didn't speak until they were out of the cave. Lyle's eyes adjusted to the darkness on their walk back. The constant bob of Winnifred's ponytail was a Will-o'-Wisp guiding him to the night. They finally passed the threshold, pushed the gate open, and were back in the world of the living.

Winnifred dropped his hand immediately. "Okay, come on. Say it."

Lyle raised an eyebrow.

"You're going to let me have it, right?" She pulled the hair tie out and wrapped it around her wrist, then started removing her glove. "I disobeyed orders, went in and made a scene, and if that guy hadn't intervened, it could have busted up the entire operation. Right?"

That was exactly what Lyle wanted to say.

The entire time the battle had gone on, Lyle willed himself to move. To get to Winnifred's bag, put on his Styler, and halt everything. Or at least pull her out the moment he saw Roy in the ring. When the very set-up of your plan isn't working, you don't go through with it. People get hurt that way.

Lyle had learned that better than anyone.

He also learned how to reward improvisation. And hell, a victory was a victory was a victory.

A victory was a victory, and even in triumph, Winnifred was a graceful wonder. She folded her arms and stared at him, her hair still bunched up in the back and her leg still pulsing from the fight. Her lips pulled to the side, one eye closed and another waiting to counter an attack. As though someone had posed her, then added a final dash of blush to her chubby cheeks and a deep maroon to her lips in the moonlight.

Shake it off, Lyle.

"I was going to call it a Mission Clear," he said. And when Winnifred opened both eyes: "That wasn't how it was meant to go, but honestly, missions never go how you expect. I'd say we get Plusle back to Miriam and her mom tomorrow, then call it in."

That cheery grin spread on her face. She pulled her bag forward retrieved Lyle's Styler, then placed Plusle's ball inside.

"That reminds me," she asked. "Did you get any leads on Michael? Anything you can use to figure out what he's up to, or whatever."

"Yeah, Lyle Forrester. Did you get anything you can use or whatever?"

Lyle froze. They'd been overheard.

Winnifred threw her bag back on her shoulder. "Why are you so creepy?" She yelled past Lyle. "Thanks for saving my behind back there, but—"

"I'm the creepy one, but Lyle here chats you up on the Internet and he gets a free pass. Girls," Nate sighed. He closed the gate behind him and approached the two, hands in his pockets. When he got close enough that the moonlight flooded his hair and cast his eyes in shadow, Nate held up both hands. A peace offering.

Lyle turned to face him. Fists clenched. Styler on.

Winnifred regarded the two. "So I see you've met," she said. Pointing to Nate: "Are you a Ranger or something?"

"Lyle, this is why you don't bring civilians into your missions," Nate said. "They ask other people if they're Rangers or something."

"I've got everything under control," Lyle said. Ending the conversation now, fast. "I appreciate the help, but Ranger HQ is on the case."

"I heard about that. Then I heard that their operative was MIA for two weeks. So I took one week, infiltrated Metal Arm's offices, instated one of my own in HR, and spied on the guy's ex-girlfriend. In the time it took you to...Track down a little girl's mouse?"

Lyle hated himself for two reasons.

One: functional human beings don't just let people say that. Functional human beings take offense, they defend even their dumbest actions, or at the very least, they fire an insult back. They don't silently _agree_.

Two: functional post-adolescent human males don't let girls fight their battles.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Winnifred belted.

"Pokemon Champion Nate, at your service." Nate flicked a strand of hair as he spoke. "Moonlighting as Covenant Operative, too."

Great. He said it.

Lyle knew Winnifred would turn to him before she did. "You said that before," she remembered. "The Covenant."

"The Covenant of Light. Led by Red and Ethan, it's an association of elite Trainers with experience in saving the world from crisis incidents."

"It's a vigilante posse that takes the law into its own hands," Lyle spat.

Nate shrugged. "Tomato, tom-ah-to. Point is, I'm glad you finally showed up. There's a mess going on in Metal Arm's hierarchy and we're short on manpower. Or boypower, in your case."

"What, you're running low on overpowered Pokemon Trainers with time on their hands?"

Winnifred walked between the two, holding her hands up at both of them. Who taught her that? "If you two can stop the pissing contest for a minute?" She regarded both of them, then spoke again. "Nate, you're part of a...what, a Justice League of Trainers?"

"That is correct, ma'am."

She stopped and restarted. "We _have _that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And Lyle, he's got a way into Michael's operation. And he could use the help."

"We definitely could," Nate said. "My team knows what XD-01 is. And believe me, we'll need some Legendary firepower to take it down. If we bungle it, Lyle here might be the only guy on the continent to take it down. You know. If he's feeling up to it."

_That _did it.

Lyle snatched Winnifred's hand and pulled her with him. She dug in her heels and he pulled harder. She followed, but she made a fist. Lyle was liable to get socked.

You win some, you lose some. You mission clear, you run into Covenant. That's life.

"If you can swallow what pride you've got left," Nate called after them, "Aspartia Gym tomorrow, 0600. Tell 'em I sent you."

Lyle led them through the trees and finally back to the park path. Winnifred yanked her arm away and rubbed where Lyle had been holding her. "He's not behind us anymore," she snapped.

"Good."

Leaves crunched beneath their feet, and soon they could hear cars on the road.

"Care to tell me what that was all about?" Winnifred asked.

"Nope."

"Let me guess. Ranger business?"

He didn't answer.

"Lyle, you're being an awful partner."

"Oh, come _on_."

Winnifred stopped in her tracks. This time, Lyle knew better than to pull her.

"Lyle, I really want to help you, but you're just making this so _difficult—_"

"Why?"

The venom left her voice completely. "Why are you difficult?" She giggled.

The girl giggles. _God._

"Why are you helping me?" It poured out like lava, and Lyle couldn't stop it. "You don't have to. Nobody has to, and hell, you're not even supposed to. You're not supposed to be anywhere near me. We don't owe each other anything and my job barely has anything to do with you."

Winnifred moved to cross her arms. She didn't. "I know, but—"

"And if this is about your boyfriend, I don't want anything to do with it."

He wanted Winnifred to react. Lyle knew, deep down, that he wasn't cross with her. He never could be. It was a million other things. It was Nate, and the Covenant, and his little brother and Legendary firepower and Michael and why he was here in this bizarre country with these bizarre people who bring bizarre muffins on bizarre trains.

It wasn't Winnifred. It never had been.

Though when she walked past him, bumping into his shoulder going at a hard zillion miles per hour, Lyle knew he'd gone too far.

Saying that made him feel good, right then.

Right _now_, it made him feel like hell.

_God._

* * *

I have a confession to make! As part of a new technique I'm trying, I am officially writing 'Winnifred and Lyle' without a true outline. I've got the ending, but I don't know how it will necessarily get there. Because if you know how everything ends, you're not letting yourself answer the questions of the characters. Bam.

Why am I telling you all that? Just because I'm excited as balls to see where this takes us.

You know the drill. Thanks for reading, thanks twice over if you've read from the start, and thanks triple-time for reviewing.


	7. We All Go A Little Crazy I

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

We All Go A Little Crazy – Part 1

-Lyle-

He had almost slept on the sidewalk.

Lyle knew it was dumb. Winnifred didn't live at the hotel. She had a life outside of her job, which was more than could be said for Lyle himself. After storming off—rightfully so—she probably went home. They wouldn't even cross paths.

Still, he took the long walk back.

He didn't sleep well, or at all, which was actually a blessing. It meant Lyle had free time to wash his face, change his clothes, and go back outside before Winnifred took her desk shift. He had timed it right.

At four thirty in the morning, Lyle was up and about without ever seeing her.

It wasn't a good feeling. There were many not-good-feelings. He only took the attack tip of his Styler and had crammed it down his pocket, to keep his profile down on the walk over. A Ranger talking with someone looked normal. A Ranger on his own? It was asking for attention.

It was what Lyle _should_ have been, way back when he first got here.

He pushed the negative thoughts away—he had to meet Covenant of Light scumbags, there was no reason to have a negative attitude about already-crappy-things-to-happen—but they brought him back to the same place.

If Winnifred were here, his stomach wouldn't be growling. It'd be full of free muffins.

If Winnifred were here, he wouldn't have to check the train schedule for directions to Aspartia Gym.

And if Winnifred were here, he'd have his full Styler crammed in her backpack, and he'd have some idea of what he was doing.

The train pulled into the station completely empty. Lyle stood anyway. He leaned on the doors as they closed, then turned and leaned his forehead on the glass.

_Give yourself this_, he thought. _You're out of bed on your own, for once_.

…That meant Winnifred was the reason he'd been getting up at all for the last few days.

_Not helping, brain_.

A half an hour of counting stops and having mini-panic-attacks that he had missed the right one, Lyle finally disembarked at Main and Numeva Road. Exactly what Lyle expected the fancy tourist district to look like: cobblestone roads, thin sidewalks encouraging visiting Trainers to walk wherever, shops (shoppes?) open to the street front, and trees with their leaves cut into perfect spheres. The gentle hazel of early morning gave it all a secretive feeling. Like this world was a secret, as though he were seeing what those waking up in a few hours never would.

It was a world at peace, he realized.

Aspartia Gym was at the edge of the neighborhood, on the road leading into and out of town. A plain, boxy building several stories high. It took a moment for Lyle to recognize the town Gym Badge emblazoned on the front.

Lyle pulled down on his flat blue shirt. The wrinkles remained.

He walked forward, but the doors didn't open by themselves. He knocked once, twice.

A slow voice drawled from the door. "Gym hours are nine to five, Leader Cheren is only available by appointment after noon."

Lyle stared at it, and when he saw nothing, he cleaned his glasses on his shirt and stared harder.

A small microphone lay on the door lock.

"I'm here to see Cheren," Lyle said, unsure.

The voice took a heavy breath. "Gym hours are nine to five—"

"Nate sent me," Lyle said.

A pause. Lyle reached into his back pocket, resting a hand on the attack Styler.

"Lyle Forrester." The voice was suddenly awake. Ready. And a full octave higher, to boot. "Please hold your Styler to the door."

"I didn't bring it."

"What kind of Ranger doesn't bring his Styler?" She asked.

Lyle was _this_ close to explaining himself. But then he asked, would Winnifred explain herself?

"I didn't bring it," he repeated.

There were whispers from around the microphone. "Ranger ID and security code, then!"

Huh. A Sinnoh accent.

"27244-00930. Security code 643. Oblivia Unit B, Ranger School A class." More info than they needed. Probably not close to as much as they had on him.

Covenants. Screw the rules, we're Pokemon Champions. Lyle wondered, what was it like, feeling stronger than the law? Even if it was in the name _of_ the law?

The doors zipped open on both sides. A lone light flicked on at the end of the Gym, disregarding the winding pathways reserved for Trainer challenges. Lyle started for it, and the doors sealed shut behind him as he walked. The lights turned off behind him as he progressed toward the other end of the facility.

Covenants. Always so showy.

He expected to find an elevator to nowhere, or an ambush if this went south. A battle was the last thing on his mind. And yet, lo and behold: a man in a blue trench coat stood alone.

To be fair, there was an ominous elevator _behind_ him.

Lyle stopped when the figure raised his gaze. The blue coat opened and billowed at his military boots. The man's sand-brown hair rose and fell in waves, streaking down the sides of his long, steel expression. The white burst of color across the bridge of his nose drew attention, but Lyle knew to focus on the man's gloved hand reaching to his belt.

"This is either a trap or some bogus test of strength," Lyle said. And when the man didn't reply: "That's how you guys do things, right? Brute strength proves your usefulness, not skills and resources."

The man clicked his tongue. "Michael won't tolerate infighting among my ranks, Ranger. If you want to leave, you know where the door is."

_The one that slammed shut?_

"I will attack," the man said. His voice low and cool, like an ocean howl. "Styler or not."

"Fine by me." Lyle waved his hand across his back pocket. The attack Styler raced to life, spinning and floating out and beside him, the base rotating on the wristband.

Winnifred's left-hand hair tie flashed before him.

_God_. He needed to apologize. And he would. She probably wouldn't accept it—the last few times Lyle apologized, he just got laughed at—but Winnifred deserved that much.

But she wouldn't let herself get distracted in a fight, either.

"A smaller Styler?" The man asked.

"It's the weapon-point. Not the full thing, but good enough for whatever you can throw."

Two green Great Balls flew from his hand and into the space between them. Lyle held up another hand to shield his eyes.

"Very well, Ranger," the man said. "Come!"

…

-Winnifred-

She almost didn't go to work.

The alarm went off, just like any other day. Winnifred sat up straight after slamming the alarm off. She didn't want to sleep again. She wanted to think.

Pros of going to work today: money. Trading the occasional quip with Mac. That lovely city air on the walk over.

Cons of going to work today:

Winnifred groaned and rolled over, balling her covers into a nest.

It wasn't that Lyle had been mean. _Come on_, she had told herself before falling asleep. _How many times have you lashed out at people who didn't deserve it?_ Winnifred could write a book on misplaced anger. An encyclopedia, if you will.

That wasn't it, though. Lyle's words got to her because they were the truth. Unlike half of the bullshit her mother said, which was empty and unfounded and hurtful for the sake of hurting, Lyle was one hundred percent right.

She doesn't owe Lyle anything. She's not being very helpful. The Michael thing…that's another issue, but it was still valid. Would she even be half as interested in Lyle's life if he weren't connected to her own in that specific way?

Footsteps sounded outside her door. They stopped and backed-up, and then there was a knock.

"Winnifred isn't here right now. Leave a message after the beep." She counted to five. "Beeeeeeeep."

"Please be out of bed," Mirelle urged. "Your shift starts in half an hour."

"I can make it if I want."

Pause.

"Mirelle?"

"Yes, Winnifred?"

"Can you call in and say I have the plague?"

The door burst open. Mirelle's brilliant hazel eyes glowered. Winnifred jolted upright, her hair slapping her in the face.

"What's his name?" Mirelle demanded.

"What's…who's name?"

Mirelle's 'serious' pose always made Winnifred want to laugh. The scrawny young woman balled her fists, pursed her lips, furrowed her brow, and tapped her foot. It belonged in a cartoon, and the pink hair didn't help. "The boy. His name. I want it."

"Nunya Business."

"A-_ha!_" Mirelle shouted. Winnifred jumped out of her skin. "I knew it!"

"I didn't say anything—"

"No, but by not saying that there wasn't a boy at _all_, it means there _is _one and you had to stop and come up with a lie! So there _is_ a boy making you stay at home and act like a sad Renaissance portrait, and so _I'm_ asking for his name so I can bust his face for making you feel like this."

Winnifred shook her head and held up a hand. "For starters? Please, don't go around busting faces. That's my thing. If you're going to pick up one of my bad habits, pick up one that won't get you arrested."

"Nobody arrested you—"

"And evidence that the justice system is at best a flawed institution." She pushed herself out of the covers and sat cross-legged on her comforter. Winnifred's white nightshirt had her looking like a ghost. "And really, it is my fault. Lyle doesn't need—"

"HA! Lyle! That's his name!" Mirelle slammed her fist in her palm. "See, Room 14 was weird, but this guy has a name, and you can't just stand by while your friends get picked on by named individuals!"

What did having a name matter? Did guys with no names get free reign to be scumbags?

Besides.

"Lyle _is_ Room 14," Winnifred said. And in the inevitable shock silence: "There's a lot that's happened…or maybe it's not a lot at all. It's just been a few days, really, but he said some stuff, and I might have needed to hear that stuff, even if it might have been mean."

"That's a lot of 'might'."

Winnifred nodded.

"So…you _might_ be taking the day off for boy drama."

Winnifred slapped her forehead and rolled back onto the mattress. Which was a miscalculation: she ended up rolling off the bed and right onto the floor. Mirelle closed her eyes during the collision and waited for her roommate to get to her feet.

"It's not boy drama, for the last time!" Because really, when you set aside the Ranger deal, Lyle was strikingly anti-dramatic. He didn't even want to do the Ranger Pose deal, and what was the point of being a Ranger if you didn't get to do dramatic poses? "It's _me_ drama. I have drama."

"Right," Mirelle drawled, this time with genuine sympathy oozing in the words. "Those paintings you told me about."

The ones she still needed twenty-seven-hundred dollars to fix. With a fast-approaching deadline before Uncle Howard ripped her spleen out to pay for it.

"And your brother!" Mirelle blinked, one finger pointed in the air. "Isn't he coming in a few days?

"Oh, and then there's taking the License Exam before your permit expires…"

"_Mirelle_."

"Sorry! I'm just trying to help."

"Then stop helping me," Winnifred snapped.

The universe did not take kindly to yelling at kind souls, and screaming at Mirelle constituted a violation. A plume of bed-head hair that had pointed almost straight up folded over to land smack over her face. Mirelle went from taken aback at the almost-fight to snickering instantaneously.

Winnifred took a heaving sigh. It blew the hair from her eyes, at least.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm…I'm not me today."

"No, this is definitely 'Winnifred'," Mirelle said. "It's an on-edge, hyper-stimulated Winnifred. Still Winnifred." Then: "That's a lot of 'Winnifred's. And fine, I'll let you stay home out of the goodness of my roommate-ly heart, but the time has to be spent productively, okay? Producing things!"

What could she get done today? Once 'stay under the covers until age 90 and am decrepit' got scratched off the list, at least.

She needed to do a Ranger Net job…which couldn't happen without Lyle…

The rescued Pokeball flashed back into memory. She didn't need Lyle to take a girl's Pokemon back home. And the money was hers anyway.

"I've got some errands to run," Mirelle said as she started down the hallway. She stopped in the living room and pulled the blinds open, revealing the bustling Aspartia Town skyline and bathing her in natural light. "Just…go outside once, okay?"

"Actually…"

Mirelle took her bag off the back of their sofa. Winnifred noticed: her roommate was fully dressed already, overalls and white shirt and sandals and all. The Artist's Uniform.

"Which way are these errands headed?" Winnifred asked, poking her head in the hallway. "Out of curiosity."

"They're not far. A bunch of local stuff. Pick up some brushes here, fill out some housing forms there…"

"Anywhere near the hotel?"

Mirelle smiled. "If you tag along and get caught, I will tell you upfront that I'm an awful liar."

"No, it's…I have an errand too. Around there." Winnifred looked down at her nightshirt, her tangled web of hair, and the grime in her fingernails. "Give me two minutes?"

…

-Lyle-

He always wondered what the floor tasted like. Now Lyle knew: it was cold and sad. With a distinct ginger-y aftertaste.

Meganium and Ampharos returned to the man's sides, the ground trembling beneath Lyle with every step of the mighty dinosaur and zapping him when Ampharos dragged its tail. They turned and faced him, stared him down, daring Lyle to get back to his feet and try fighting again.

"Round three was somewhat more impressive," the man said. He rubbed the tip of his nose with a gloved hand, and Lyle noticed the white stripe across his face never faded. "Though really, it's impressive that you're not dead."

Lyle got to his knees. Success!

Okay, so he was still hunched over and feeling the definite breeze where his shirt was open, and his torso was on _fire_ from that ThunderPunch attack, but beyond that…Success!

One foot in front of the other, now. Get out from under one foot, take a moment and rest on your knee, fight the urge to vomit up your intestines…

"If necessary, my Ampharos can re-charge the Styler."

"Thanks but no thanks," Lyle managed. His throat burned. "I've got enough juice left to beat you."

"That's what worries me, Ranger. The men I expect to go up against are _easily_ stronger than I am. If it's this difficult to defeat _not even_ my two main warriors…"

They were Lyle's supervisor's words: _maybe you're not cut out for this._

The other foot came out from him, and somehow, _somehow_, Lyle was standing. He extended his right hand and the attack Styler flew to him and hovered. Dented and dinged and making an odd clicking sound, but otherwise capable.

Lyle liked that thought. _A few cracked ribs, bruised femurs, probably a shattered toe or two, but otherwise capable._

"Very well, then." The man said. "Meganium." And a snap of the fingers.

The Styler went flying. Meganium had to be stationary for its head antennae to become Vine Whips, and that was the opening. The Styler drew one, two, three quick loops at the base of its neck, then zipped away before Ampharos could use its Discharge move and zap it from the sky—

Vine Whips incoming! Lyle dived to the side, skinning what remained of his elbow and falling into a clumsy roll. He came out standing, but his vision blurred—

"Ampharos."

Bright light coming his way. Signal Beam! Lyle ran into the attack as it charged, almost baiting the blast to take him into the next life. The burst of energy released from the red gem at Ampharos's head and Lyle leapt out of the way, flipping high into the air and fanning his legs to twist his body, _and _using the momentum to spin another five loops at Meganium.

The steady blue in its eyes amplified with every loop, but it wasn't enough and he had to land sometime—

Wait. Were those _tree roots_ coming out of the ground?

"Frenzy Plant?!" Lyle shouted, disbelieving.

The attack Styler zipped back to him and, thinking with his life depending on it, Lyle sent the small steel disc slicing through the looming foliage. He landed in a stinging crouch, his knees _this close_ to giving way, and the Styler back at his wristband.

Ampharos and Meganium in position, waiting for the next assault.

The last time he went for the easy attack and almost beat the Ampharos, Meganium had used a healing move, undone almost all of the Styler damage, and sent him careening into a personal crater.

The last time he didn't go for the easy attack, he got thrown across a room.

"I'll tell you what," Lyle said. "I'll take one more shot at this, then I'm out. Not because I'm giving up—though I do like my organs—but because this is just dumb. I thought I was here to help, not be a piñata."

"Please, Lyle."

"Excuse me?" _Goddamnit, Winnifred voice._

"We both know you hold the trump card here, not me. I could throw my entire team of Pokemon, as well as those of my colleagues, and you could wipe us out in a nanosecond. A _nanosecond_. This is an impressive battle, and truth be told this has been more difficult than I thought—"

"What, breaking me?"

"—But if you walk out that door, Lyle, it is no vindication. I have studied you, and you have not _earned _vindication.

"There is only one way to retribution: through the doors behind me. And to do that, you need to summon it."

_It. _

Lyle's answer was instinct. "Not happening."

The man brushed his gloved hands along the long coat, pushed the fabric back, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his black pants. "Why?"

And when Lyle didn't answer: "What are you afraid of, Pokemon Ranger?"

Lyle spat a wad of red fluid onto the blasted ground.

Where did he begin?

Lyle loathed Covenant operatives. He loathed the Covenant of Light, but he loathed so many people at Ranger HQ that it didn't even matter.

He loathed going outside and meeting new people in this faux-Oz that was also his hell.

He hated how he would lock up when strangers used hurtful words, but how he would turn around and lash out at those important to him.

He had hurt Winnifred.

He missed his little brother.

The story of Lyle Forrester, age eighteen. What are you afraid of, Pokemon Ranger?

_I won't summon it because it won't come._

They'd have to drag him through nine circles of hell him to admit that one.

So Lyle raised his head and threw the Styler in the air. His shoulder muscles screamed. He bled where the shirt had torn along his collar.

"I thought we had a fight going," he said.

…

-Winnifred-

Mirelle was popular. And it was the worst.

They weren't a block away from the art supply store when people started waving at them. Winnifred had conditioned herself to never acknowledge the attention, because if people knew her it was from crazy illegal underground battles, and if they were stalkers she'd be screwing herself by waving back. It took a solid chunk of brainpower for Winnifred to realize, they weren't waving at her. They liked Mirelle.

And standing in the back of the store, flipping through the empty notebooks that were always so pretty and always too expensive to justify even fantasizing about purchasing, Winnifred understood how.

"Look at this one," Mirelle asked. She held a wide black notebook with a matte finish cover. "What does it say?"

"Nothing. It's blank."

Mirelle shook her head. She trotted to the front desk, where the two boys working the register received her with wide grins. "Hey, what does this notebook say to you?" She asked again.

Boy 1: "To tell the truth, it's subdued. Quiet. Maybe it's waiting for someone?"

Boy 2: "I think I disagree. That notebook definitely knows something, and it's not sharing."

Winnifred shook her head. None of this made sense, and that wasn't even the strangest part.

She remembered the time she dared to even browse in a Poke Mart. This was pre-Trainer-Permit, even, and Winnifred had no clue what she was doing. She went up to a shelver and asked why Great Balls were green and what made them so 'great' in the first place. Forget making conversation: they asked for her license or permit, and when she said she was just a Pokemon fan, she got the boot _and_ a six month ban following ever receiving said identification.

Lyle said, in more words, that she was just an annoyance.

Watching Mirelle work her social magic, Winnifred had no qualms accepting that.

Huh.

Lyle was awkward as all hell, but he didn't hate himself for it, did he?

…

-Lyle-

"Here we go!"

Lyle charged forward with all the speed his bruised and crushed legs could muster. Meganium and Ampharos watched patiently, waiting for the order to smash the boy to smithereens. And their Trainer, with his coat and his boots and that white stripe over his nose that he probably thought looked so very cool, waited to issue it.

Styler above Lyle's head, he whipped his hand forward, the weapon _flying—_

"Ampharos, Thunderbolt," the man snapped.

Just as planned.

Lyle willed his torso not to fall apart with one final acrobatic jump, and—Success! He kicked into the sky and wove clear over the yellow wave of energy. Meganium was already sending out its Vine Whips to tear him out of the air, but Lyle was focused. He gestured with fury, the Styler racing around and around Ampharos, its eyes turning more and more blue until….

_Come on, give me that 'pop'_…

"Not so fast!" Lyle's opponent roared. "Meganium, Magical Leaf."

"Yeah, about that." Lyle landed behind Ampharos and Meganium, daring to stare clear into the man's deep brown eyes. Lyle whipped his wrist across his body, and the Styler glided to Meganium and wrapped it in a loop for both Pokemon.

_Almost—_

"Seismitoad, Rock Smash!"

…And _crunch_ went Lyle's Styler. The blue amphibian arms came down on the device from just beyond the arena lights. Nate ran toward the battle, his hulking Seismitoad watching with ambivalence. Were they just watching the whole time?

Nate pulled on his sweat-matted blue t-shirt, struggling to keep it from sticking. "So much for that plan, boss."

Boss?

Meganium and Ampharos returned to their barracks in bursts of crimson light. A gloved hand extended to the crouched Lyle.

"Mission failed, Ranger," he said.

"Bullshit," Lyle said between heaving-for-dear-life breaths. "If we kept going, you would have—"

"The mission was not to beat me. In fact, the mission was to admit that you _couldn't_ defeat me. Not alone, at any rate."

Lyle paused. Then he took the hand, and with his legs shot as they were, he basically was lifted like a toddler. "Come again?"

Nate stood a good distance away from the two. Hands in his pockets, on foot resting on the other. So _snide_ looking. "You're not going to bring Michael the Metal Arm in on your own."

"And unlike your Ranger HQ," the strange man continued, "the Covenant of Light operates on more of a team-oriented policy."

Lyle shook his head. "Last I heard, there weren't enough of you to form teams. Not enough organization," he drawled. Part insult, part my-mouth-is-covered-in-pain-fluids.

"There aren't. That's why we have to work together when we have the option. And Lyle, by choosing to fight me head-on rather than admit that you needed help, this was a fail."

The man raised another hand. Nate tossed the broken attack Styler to him. "Though since you would have beaten me…I suppose you are still useful." Suddenly a grin: "I don't like how this went down, but I'm not an idiot."

"No, you just broke my Styler." _And me_, Lyle thought.

"I also have a name. I am Wes."

Lyle watched as his damaged Styler disappeared into Wes's cloak. Wes extended a hand, this time as a greeting rather than a challenge.

It took Lyle exactly three seconds.

"Orre Incident Wes," he said. "Shadow Pokemon Incident Wes."

And when Lyle almost stumbled backward, because his knees couldn't weather the shock, Nate caught him and grinned. "And Kruyem Incident Nate, at your service."

"Dawn and Cossette can repair your Styler. If you'll follow me," Wes trailed off. He turned and started for the elevator doors.

Nate let go of Lyle for just an instant, long enough for him to fall forward and for his glasses to rock clear off of his head. Nate snatched the frames before they hit the ground, then pulled Lyle back up. "I've got you," he said. "Sorry, buddy. It'll be a long morning."

"I can barely stand," Lyle breathed.

"You'll wanna see this, though," Nate said. "Trust me, saving the world is gonna be worth it."

The elevator doors opened. Wes entered, followed by Nate and a hobbling, limping, and barely conscious Lyle.

…

-Winnifred-

"Sure you don't wanna come along?" Mirelle asked as the train approached. "I mean, I know you don't like to do artsy things, but there are fun people! People that do fun things! Fun people." Mirelle bobbed her head this way and that while she spoke. The excitement from buying her two bags of art books and pens was crawling to her brain and taking over.

Winnifred feigned a smile, somewhere between a real grin and a frown and working every muscle in her chubby face. "I've got something to take care of over here," she said. "I'll see you at home?"

The train stopped and the doors pushed open. "Will do," Mirelle said. "Stop by my folks' bakery and get something to eat. Boy problems and treats—"

"I do _not_ have boy problems."

Mirelle escaped into the train, put a hand to her ear, and: "What is that? I can't hear you?" The doors closed.

Winnifred stood at the platform, in the middle of some nowhere part of this nowhere-town-that-would-kill-to-be-a-somewhere-town, and watched the train disappear behind skyscrapers. She reached to her backpack and felt the weight of two Pokeballs. One her familiar pal, the other a responsibility.

"Off to Miriam's place," Winnifred said to nobody.

* * *

My classes have decided that they want me dead.

Anyway, you guys know what to do! Thanks for reading, and thanks a bunch more if you review.

Not that it diminishes the first 'thanks' for reading. I like it when people read this stuff.


	8. We All Go A Little Crazy II

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

We All Go A Little Crazy – Part 2

-Lyle-

They were silent as the elevator descended into the Aspartia Gym bowels. Lyle propped himself against the back wall, letting the cold steel heal the bruises and scrapes along his spine.

"Aspartia Gym is the main entrance," Wes said. "We have access to any train station in the city, but it's one-way."

"Yeah, Cheren knows a thing or two about sneaking around," Nate added. Then, to Lyle: "The Gym Leader here, Cheren. We go a ways back."

"The Kryuem Incident," Lyle repeated. He would have _killed_ for a cough drop.

"I wouldn't say I'm _the_ reason Aspartia Town got so high and mighty," Nate touched a finger to his chest, "Aspartia Town, born and raised. I just got screwed by timing. I mean, yeah, there just needed to be someone to fight N, and I wasn't around yet…"

Wes: "You're not as good as Hilbert, Nate."

Nate: "Bitch, I _might_ be."

Then when Wes turned his head slowly, _slowly_, as though it were rotating independent of his body, Nate's frame sunk. "I'll be good," he said.

There was that name again. Hilbert.

"So anyway, I called in a favor," Nate continued. "Cheren's technically a supporter of the Covenant, so he gets plausible deniability. We come in from the Gym, we can say we were sneaking. Come in from the outside means we got a key, and it looks bad on him."

"It's a secret operation, got it," Lyle said.

The elevator slowed to a stop. A 'ding' sounded above them and the doors opened.

Wes walked forward. Nate waited for Lyle and offered a hand when he didn't follow right away.

Lyle almost reached. Then he didn't, settling for a hobbling limp instead.

"It's not terribly impressive," Wes said. He gestured around the main room, particularly the three desks covered in papers and laptop computers. Cans of Red Bull scattered like confetti. Two smaller rooms, each on opposite sides of the space, followed by two tunnels leading back. "The left tunnel leads to the bathroom. Other tunnel…you would get lost."

"I'll remember that."

The door on the left side opened. A girl's voice. "Took you long enough. What, did you stop for lunch, or _holy god you tried to kill him." _

"He did not grasp the nature of the test. I acted as deemed appropriate."

"Sure, up to and including _bludgeoning _him." She walked quickly, closing the distance and regarding the cuts and bruises and numerous scrapes on Lyle's tired form. Tiny hands pulled on her white beanie cap. "Jeez." And looking him in the eye: "I'm sorry about those two. They can be…"

Nate folded his arms. Wes raised an eyebrow.

"Pretentious," she finished. She waved with an open palm, smile wide. "I'm Dawn. Nice to meet you, Lyle Forrester, Ranger ID 27244-00930."

Lyle placed the voice. "You worked the door earlier."

"She also defeated Team Galactic and prevented the Sinnoh region from becoming a tear in space and time," Wes added.

"I've got some experience in evil-vanquishing," Dawn said. She giggled, too. "A girl of many talents."

"Where is Cossette?" Wes demanded.

"Back in our room," Dawn said, not taking her eyes off of Lyle. "Her presentation's ready. Just waiting on your approval."

"Excellent." Wes removed his coat and rested it on the back of a nearby chair. He beelined for the far room, the spikes of his hair moving with each pointed stride. He entered and closed the door behind him quietly.

Nate sat on one of the desks and kicked his legs underneath.

"He's the leader," Lyle said.

"Not really. Like…okay, so the Wes-man got us together, told everybody that Aspartia Town was about to become the newest pit of darkness and evil and all that, _and_ he's got the plan, but he's not the leader per se."

Dawn nodded. "A leader implies he's more powerful than us. Believe me, he is _not_."

Lyle tried leaning against a desk. His entire lower body screamed _no_. "Have you and him…I don't know, battled? Sparred?"

"Duked it out?" Nate popped his lips. "I dunno, Dawn. Have you?"

Dawn blinked. "I _could _have won that time."

"Sure."

"No, really. You saw it, Nate! You were there!" Then, to Lyle: "He was there. Wes was doing his 'test your strength' bit, and if I _knew_ that Ampharos has a Lightning Rod special ability, Luxray would have beaten the daylights out of it. But instead I had to use a Spark Cancel…"

So they fought for fun. When Rangers fought one another, it was for a genuine reason beyond hurting someone close for bragging rights.

When Winnifred fought for bragging rights, she was doing so as a civilian. Doing so as a supposed protector of humanity? Where did these people—

"Are you going to be okay?" Dawn asked. She stood on her tip-toes and looked him square in the face. "You look all spaced-out or whatever."

Wes entered then, now with a girl a head shorter than any one of them, with glasses wide enough to eat Lyle's for breakfast. Her stringy blond hair stuck to the sweat along her forehead and neck, and her round frame seemed to bobble with its quick steps. In her ham-sized hands lay Lyle's damaged Styler, still smoking and now lying in two pieces. Lyle felt himself tear at the sight.

"I should be able to fix it by tomorrow morning," the young woman said, her deep voice striking. "Just some heavy damage around the armor, some splitting at the core connections…But it's been repaired before. If I had to say, it looks like this Styler got hit with some crazy-strong—" And spotting Lyle—"Though to be fair, the Ranger himself seems built the same way."

"Cossette is our engineer," Wes said. "Would-be Professor of Electrical Engineering and Systems at Goldenrod University, came to us on a recommendation. Ethan and Lyra weren't planning on doing any government espionage for the foreseeable future."

_So they _admit_ to spying and hacking. _

"It's only a would-be as I took this role instead," Cossette clarified, her Johto accent striking the vowels hard and slurring over everything else. "Professors make a paycheck. Covenant Operators change the world."

_And now they've got cult devotees. No wonder nobody here is over twenty-five._

Cossette removed a tiny flash drive from her white lab coat and stuck it to the back of one of the desk laptops. The image projected onto the elevator wall. Wes motioned for Lyle to sit. He did not, at least until his resolve broke ten seconds later.

Dawn smiled at Lyle as he slowly lowered into the chair.

The first image showed the world map. Plain, ordinary world map. Except it was missing a few pieces.

"Now, Mr. Lyle," Cossette started. "This is the world. The world as it was some ten years ago, before the Information Age as we like to call it."

Nate, whispering: "We like to call it that?'

The next slide clicked. An exploded map, with every country, Sevii Islands and underwater Hoenn cities included. "This one is from a few weeks back, hot off the U of G press. You'll notice it has Kalos, Unova, Sinnoh, your own Ranger Union, the works."

"I did notice that," Lyle said.

"I would hope so," Cossette said. "This is the world we have today. Notice that each country has its own major cities, its own allies, its own political history. That's what a country _is_, but the fact that they have become so connected in so little time is of importance. Some scholars posit that we accomplished in ten years what should have taken thousands."

Cossette adjusted her glasses.

"Now. Notice again that as each country filled in the map, the ones that had prominence before suddenly seemed quaint."

"Unless you were Kanto and Johto," Nate said.

"Unless you were Kanto and Johto," Cossette continued. "I apologize, Nate, but this is not a lecture on Kanto-Centrism in our society. That comes next class."

Lyle fought the grin.

"As I was saying, previously important countries became quaint. One among them in particular: Orre, off to the west." Cossette crossed in front of the projection and pointed to the very farthest corner of the map. "Orre shares land with Unova, but at least for the time being, there is no nation filling in the mass between them. But unlike Unova, Orre was…shall we say, unprepared for global enterprise. Wes?"

Wes picked up seamlessly. "The fall of Team Snagem, the Team Cipher incidents, and the Shadow Pokemon issues all coincided with Orre making formal arrangements to ally with Kanto, Johto, and at the time, Hoenn. Hoenn took no convincing. The other countries had seen what crime syndicates could do, with or without legendary Pokemon. They declined the invitation to ally."

"And shortly afterward, Hoenn dropped communication with Orre," Cossette said. "As it stands, Orre is both recognized and ignored politically. It stands alone."

It fell quiet again. All eyes turned to Lyle.

"That's…harsh," was all he had. Then: "Wes, you're from Orre, right? And Michael was involved with Shadow Pokemon too."

Wes's brow creased.

"How did you know that?" Dawn asked, genuinely interested.

"Ranger business."

"It's just that nobody remembers Michael," Dawn said. "Wes is the big guy, but Michael blurs into the background."

"Much like Orre itself," Cossette said with a raised voice, returning attention to her presentation. "Hilbert disappears from Unova and it affects the nation. Michael left Orre…we don't know how long ago, and the few connections the Covenant has there have turned up no information."

She went back to the laptop and closed it. The presentation disappeared, and she turned the room lights back up. "No information beyond what we have in this room, mind you. It's meant to stay that way."

They broke a few bones, they busted up his Styler, and they still didn't trust him. Wonderful.

Cossette folded her arms behind her back. "The Shadow Pokemon that remained to have their hearts purified were sealed in a government facility in Orre. Their designations were given in order of perceived threat. The Shadow Entei captured by Wes was given designation XD-04, for reference."

"Michael has XD-01," Lyle thought aloud.

"Technically. Truth be told, we doubt he has it _yet_," Wes said. "Though as he was the one to snag it himself in the second Cipher incident, before the Snag Machines were lost—"

"Wait." Lyle raised a hand. "_Michael_ stopped the second Cipher incident. _Metal Arm_ Michael."

Wes nodded. Dawn watched the two of them, wide-eyed. "What did you _think _he did?" She asked.

"I don't know, I figured he was just another guy, but…he's just as good as all of you, isn't he? He's Covenant material."

"Better than that," Nate said. "He's ex-Covenant. Way before me or Dawn or Hilbert, either. Wes knows him personally."

"Or I believed I did," Wes said quickly. "We both had Snag Machines, meaning we both fought against evil. I would never use XD designations 4 through 2, however. I believe that if we can get to Michael before he gets his hands on XD-01, I will at least reason why he has brought it so far from home."

"XD 4 through 2," Lyle echoed. "Entei…Raikou and Suicune, too. Shadow versions. What's strong enough to be an XD-01?"

Lyle searched the Covenant members. Wes and Cossette waited for Lyle to answer himself, once again baiting and judging a Ranger. Nate snickered at a joke none of them understood.

Dawn removed her cap. Dark navy hair spilled across her forehead and cascaded to her neck.

"It's Shadow Lugia," Dawn said. "Michael's bringing his Shadow Lugia to Unova."

Lyle flinched. Too taken aback to argue it. It sounded insane. "Bring it to Unova. When?"

"72 hours," Wes said. "We have a plan."

…

-Winnifred-

She was surprised that Lyle wasn't there. There was no reason to expect Lyle to show up, for him to wait on Winnifred to follow-up on their mission, but Lyle didn't strike her as the kind to let a mission lie, either. When she asked for his help, Lyle was out the door and running for her. And when he took a mission, Lyle kept it, even if it hung over him for weeks at a time. He should have been here.

Winnifred squeezed her backpack strap. Looked up at the apartment building, brushing the curls out of her face and straining to see against the afternoon sun. She remembered the way up. In a strange way, she wished she didn't.

She repeated it from memory. Open the front gate to the actual front door to the building. Walk up the flights of steps, go to the last door on the left. Stand on the left, because the last time you were here, there was someone else standing on the right, so realizing that, correct yourself and stand firmly in the middle of the doorway like the confident human being you try to be.

Winnifred knocked once. Three locks clicked back and the door swung open. Ms. Kott flashed a smile and searched the hallway. "Where's your partner?"

"He's doing his own mission today," Winnifred lied. "I'm more _his_ partner, really."

"Some men came by earlier today," Ms. Kott said, still watching the corridor. "It was surreal. They handed me an envelope stuffed, just _stuffed_ with bills and ran off."

"Were they big guys? Big, you know, like, arm-muscles-bigger-than-cantaloupes big?"

"I thought they were going to…I don't know, but it gave me such a fright." And brightening up: "Come inside, please. If there's anything I can offer you…"

"No, thanks, that's fine. Really, I'm just here to drop this off."

Ms. Kott's eyes lit up. Winnifred removed the Pokeball from her bag.

"You didn't," Ms. Kott awed. "How did you do this?"

"Ranger business, ma'am." _Yes. That sounds believable._

Ms. Kott reached for the ball, then drew her small arms back. "May I?"

Winnifred passed the Pokeball. Ms. Kott turned it in her nimble fingers, eyes bright and disbelieving. "Miriam will be _so_ happy…"

"Just doing my job."

"Your job! Right! Right. Let me go get my checkbook." Ms. Kott started back inside. "Do come in, please."

Winnifred zipped her bag back up and slung it over her shoulder. She touched her toes together.

"It's fine," Winnifred said. "Forget the checkbook. Don't worry about it."

Ms. Kott rested her hand on the doorknob. "The posting had a reward amount. I'm supposed to pay it."

"I know, but…It's..this one's on the house."

"Nonsense. Nothing is for free." Ms. Kott retreated into the apartment, passing through the living room and into the kitchenette. She found her small black checkbook on the countertop and wrote quickly. "To whom do I make it out?"

Did Ranger Union take checks? Even if they did, did the money go right to Lyle? Maybe he had to send it to his boss, then get money taken out of it. Or did it go to Winnifred herself, since this was still horrifyingly under the table?

Mrs. Kott appeared in front of Winnifred again. Everything on the check filled out but the name. Winnifred was almost repulsed from it, but the elderly woman took the girl's hand and stuffed it with the folded note.

Winnifred made the mistake of glancing into Mrs. Kott's eyes. The woman kept here there, unable to escape.

"Honey," she soothed. "You're so sad."

"Whatever happened?"

"I…my partner and I had a disagreement."

"Ah."

_Boy problems_.

"Then you certainly need this little thing." Mrs. Kott patted Winnifred's closed hand.

"I don't understand—"

"Miriam went to school the second we realized that Roy man was through tormenting us. My daughter and I had been fighting ever since you and your friend visited. I wanted to keep things as they were, but Miriam's never been one to keep her head down."

A smile, crinkled at the edges. Distant.

"But now here you are. We've got our lives back, and Miriam has her dearest friend returned to her. I said so many awful things to her after you both left that day, I-I was just furious, and she stormed out. I was still too afraid to call the police."

A different smile. One meant for Lyle.

"But you're here," Mrs. Kott said. "I was wrong. I was afraid, and wrong, and I was a foolish woman."

"Ma'am, you were only trying to protect your family."

"That's not the point! I'm saying, everyone loses their mind now and then. It happens, because we're only human, and we think what we're doing is right. Whatever happened between you and that young man, I'm sure he's regretting it."

Winnifred took a risk. Quietly, she asked: "Why do you think that?"

Mrs. Kott laughed. A small one, but pointed.

"Take care, Ranger." She said.

"Just doing the job, Ma'am."

…

She walked the rest of the way home, stuck somewhere between paying attention to the world and to her thoughts. She stepped out in front of two different cars, nearly careened into a pole, and stepped in gum.

Winnifred had folded the bill and put it in her bag, resting safely inside her Trainer glove. The early afternoon sun hid behind gray smog clouds, and this stolen day off was already half over. She didn't have money to burn on buying random crap to kill time, and good ole' Aspartia Town wasn't the kind of place to just wander. Endless office buildings, run-down apartments and boutique outlets aren't conducive to wandering.

Homeward bound, it was.

Halfway there, her stomach growled. Mirelle's parents could fix that.

Stupid, stupid right Mirelle. Always right about everything. Where was she right now, off with her friends and socializing and enjoying the so-called best years of her life? Everything came easy to Mirelle, didn't it?

Wrong. How many times had Mirelle watched Winnifred work a day job and go right into the arena, and complain that _she_ was the one with all the breaks?

Winnifred didn't even know what she was complaining about. It was just a general vat of unhappiness. Vague Unease: the Winnifred Lambert Story.

She finally turned the corner to their street. Lyle stood up from the sidewalk, swallowed the rest of his cookie, and pushed the familiar white bakery bag toward her.

Winnifred said nothing, so Lyle did.

"From your roommate's store," he said, pointing with a shaky thumb. "You didn't answer the buzzer, and you weren't at the desk today, so when I walked over, the couple at the bakery said they saw you leave with your roommate…The one with the pink hair, right?"

What happened to him?

No, really. The bruises, the ripped-to-shreds clothing, that obvious limp, the crusted blood along his arms and shins…what the hell did she miss?

"I'm sorry," he said. "About what I said before. Really, I am."

"It's fine. We all go a little crazy sometimes."

"It still wasn't right of me. And I was wrong, I do need you. This city is about to become a battleground, and you're the only person I know who…Hell. You're the only person I know."

"Lyle—"

"I pushed you to show me Hilbert Tower, then when you singlehandedly Mission Cleared, I lashed out at you for something you didn't cause. I went more than a little crazy—"

"Lyle, I won't be helping you anymore."

He lowered the bag just a tiny bit. Blinked once.

"You were right. You were right, and I needed to hear that. We don't owe each other anything, and if my…well, if my record for dumb mistakes didn't keep getting crossed with yours, we wouldn't be here right now. So I'll get out of your way and let you do your job."

She started walking again. She passed Lyle completely and went to the apartment building entrance. Stuck her key in the door, put one foot on the stair.

…This didn't feel right, either.

Goddamnit, Winnifred. _What do I want?!_

Lyle showing up with food and an apology weren't enough. And when he wasn't here, she ditched work—Mac probably called her Uncle about it, natch—and ball-and-chained herself to Mirelle.

_Boy problems are the worst._

Lyle was almost gone. He had turned back to the road, edged his bum leg for a step—

"You know, you can come upstairs. If you want."

-Lyle-

He had never been inside a girl's apartment. Or a girls' apartment, for that matter. Or any apartment.

Getting your face beaten in, hearing about essentially a rogue Covenant operative's plot to wreck Unova, discovering Lava Cookies worked better on humans than they did on Pokemon, and discovering that girls, in fact, do _not_ instantly take you back when you show up unexpectedly with snacks were all new experiences. Making up for lost time.

Winnifred tossed her bag down beside the door, on the pile of paint-covered and worn sneakers. She took the bag from under his grip and started for the kitchenette. Lyle didn't recognize it, probably since the tile counter separating it from the main room was covered in paperwork.

"I was just going to heat these up," Winnifred said. "Mirelle's family insists they're perfect as is, but I like them hot. Hope that's not a problem."

"Not at all."

"Take a seat anywhere. Preferably the sofa, since we haven't really cleaned anything in a while."

"I can tell," Lyle said before he could stop it. The towers of boxes underneath the windowsills, the small boxy television with bowls piled high on top, the Killers poster falling over on the far wall and the tossed shirts all merged into a clean-freak's nightmare.

"Hey, you're not one to talk, mister I-live-in-the-dark-with-my-noodle-containers."

"Leave my noodles alone. They did nothing to you."

Winnifred transferred the pile of muffins and Danishes—did he overdo it?—onto a plate and shoved it in the microwave. When it dinged twenty seconds later, she fished through the fridge—which was so covered in receipts and hand-drawn doodles Lyle almost didn't recognize it—and produce two orange sodas. She carried it back to the main room and sat on the far end cushion, resting the pastries between them. Winnifred rolled the can across to Lyle.

"Hope you like Crush," she said.

"Who doesn't?" He was slow to pull the tab open, and slower to bend his elbow the right way so the edge met his lips. "This visible reluctance isn't intentional, believe me."

"Oh my God, who did this to you?"

"Sheesh, Winnifred. You make it sound like I got mugged."

"Well, your Styler's not on."

"I left it with Cossette. She's their engineer science person. Gives them directions during missions, and all that. She'll have it repaired tomorrow morning." Then pushing his head back into the sofa: "And without it, I can't call my supervisor tonight. _Great_."

"Cossette's an engineer science person…"

"For the Covenant," Lyle said. "From last night? They wanted to meet me?"

"Right! My stalker guy! He did this to you?"

"No, their boss did. It was supposed to be a test to admit I need help and teamwork and some other crap. I ended up almost beating him."

"Not from where I'm sitting."

"You should see the other guy," Lyle said casually. "You have a stalker?"

"That Nate guy watched my first fight with Roy a few days ago. Then he came by the hotel, but I wasn't having it…_then_ he bailed me out of that second Roy match. I call that stalker-ish." She reached for the cherry Danish and stuffed half of it in her mouth. Crumbs rested on her full lips—

Keep it _together_, Lyle.

"That's my fault, though. I love that: so I think you only talk to me for my ex, and lo and behold, that's exactly what this creep-a-zoid was trying to do and failed." She looked up at the ceiling, palms wide. "Why, world, am I oh so important? _I just want to be normal_."

Lyle felt the fizz travel up his nostrils. She laughed at him laughing at her. It felt right.

Then Lyle felt she deserved an answer.

"Michael was a Covenant member. They think he defected the same time Hilbert did, and maybe that's why he stationed—"

"Nope!" Winnifred held a hand to shield her ears.

"Nope…what?"

"Nope, as in, I'm not listening to this. I'm a civilian, remember?"

"Come on! I said I was sorry."

"I know you did," she said in that tone reserved for annoyed mothers. "But I'm not the right person for this, anyway."

"If a Pokemon Ranger and a Covenant of Light member needed my help, I'd think I were the right person."

"But they're both _wrong_."

The room's air changed. Winnifred gripped her soda with both hands. She moved once, sitting straight up and staring daggers into the scratchy green carpet, and then folding her legs up and turning to face Lyle dead-on. "I'm not the right person for anything. You barely know me, Lyle. My life is a mess. My parents live across the country, I'm stuck in a pity job because my pity-private-school threw me out, and all of this?" She waved a finger around herself. "All of this is _bull_. I'm not nearly as awesome and confident and cool as you think I am."

"Someone's giving herself too much credit." And when she didn't laugh: _note to self. It is, in fact, possible to over-charm. _

"I can't help even if I wanted to. No Trainer License, remember?"

That was it. That's what this was about.

And at the same time, it was never about the Trainer License. Every time she had mentioned it, her eyes went far-away, retreating to a place where perceived humiliation couldn't reach. When she asked for someone to unlock her Permit Ball back under the park lake, her confidence had been a mask for this very sight, right before Lyle now. The Trainer License was tied to something eating her alive, from the inside out.

We all had that, Lyle knew. Everyone had something making them crazy now and them. The Covenant even knew what his was, and hell, Wes dared him to use it. As if.

People suffered alone, or in silence. Lyle knew that firsthand. It took someone brave to want help, no matter how they asked for it. Winnifred Lambert, folded up on the couch with her baggy jeans with tears at the heel, and her T-shirt with some weird cartoon character on the front that stretched right where she had a tiny bit of chub at her waist, with those porcelain chubby cheeks and wide honey eyes that could stare down a tank—

She was asking for help. And what did Pokemon Rangers do?

Lyle turned his body to face hers. The Lava Cookie finally kicked in, and the pain didn't burn _as_ bad. Rumor was he'd be fine by morning.

"Tell me everything," Lyle said gently.

"What everything?"

"The Trainer License everything. All-that-stuff-you-just-said everything. Give it to me, let it out."

She set the drink down on the coffee table. Shook her head. Mahogany curls danced.

"Why not?"

"I can't."

Wes's words: "What are you afraid of, Winnifred?"

She searched him, then balled up tighter. "They're my problems. Nobody else deals with my problems, and nobody should have to."

"I want to."

In the quietest voice Lyle had heard since coming to this stupid city: "You'll judge me."

"Rangers take sensitivity classes to avoid that kind of thing."

_Score._ She rolled her planetoid eyes and gave a weak laugh. She had a gap in her front teeth.

Lyle's stomach chose the best possible time to roar like the wind.

"I-I should probably eat some of this," he managed. Lyle reached for the plate and started pulling a blueberry muffin apart.

Winnifred's hand reached out and took his. She gripped it tight, tighter than even back in the darkness of the park.

He had been thrown across that steel and concrete gym for thirty minutes straight, and _this_ was when Lyle's body chose to nearly die.

"Promise not to judge me? I mean, no matter what I say, you won't see me differently?"

What he almost said: "I can't promise that. I mean, if you were born an Ursaring or something…"

What he did say: "I promise."

Winnifred nodded. She shut her eyes. Then she started talking.

* * *

Thanks for reading, and thanks a gabillion more for reviewing!


	9. A Stolen Afternoon

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

A Stolen Afternoon

-Winnifred-

Where did someone like Winnifred begin her story? From the few months ago, when she moved? From Mistralton City? Or all the way back to…Well, back to the beginning?

"So," Winnifred sighed.

"So."

"So, I was thirteen when Mom and Dad finalized their divorce. They promised it wasn't mine or Dawson's fault—Dawson's my little brother—and I think I figured that out before they did. Dad worked at some fancy company office, Silph Company or whatever. Kanto people, always so important. Mom was gonna take a promotion with Unovan Airlines. They didn't see each other much. There were infidelities."

"I'm sorry."

"Ha! No, don't be sorry _yet_. That's backstory." Winnifred reached back for her drink with her off hand, still clutching Lyle with the other.

Huh. Were they ever going to, like, _address_ all this hand-holding? Yeah, holding her hand to get her out of Hilbert Towers was comforting, Ranger protocol stuff. And Winnifred holding his in that cave was to keep from getting him lost in the town bowels.

What the hell was their excuse here?

Anyway.

"Mom and Dad decided it was time to split, and they did it in a pretty low-key way. Pops already had his own house off in Undella Town, since he was there for work more than he was every with us in Nacrene City. Mom flew me and Dawson over with a work perk, and yeah, we all knew when he picked us up that it was the last ride to Dad's house we'd ever take."

"Fathers usually want to be there for their kids—"

"No offense, Lyle, but that's for normal people. Try being stupid, stinking rich and see how you feel about your kids."

And _here's _where Lyle would start to see her differently. The uncle that owned a lucrative hotel, the parents that had been above parenthood. Boy problems and Rich Girl problems, and he would see, that's all Winnifred was.

"Dad gave us this lecture, all formal-like. He said, 'I talked with your mother, and we both feel private schools would be in your interest. It's what this family needs right now.'"

Lyle's lip quivered. "You're _kidding_."

"The family they were wrecking needed us gone. It's funny like a heart attack, yeah."

She felt Lyle start to pull away, even for a minute. Her fault for snapping, Winnifred owned it. She ran her thumb over his fingers, felt the fine white hairs by his knuckles.

"Placing Dawson was easy. He wanted to go into law. Still does, I think he's actually a lawyer somewhere..? Whatever. So they stuffed him in some school by Liberty Island." A breath. "Dad said it was, and I quote, surprisingly affordable.

"I was a bit…harder."

"They couldn't let you go," Lyle said with a struggling grin.

No sell. "In case you didn't already notice from my penchant for street fighting, I've got a violent personality. I had hurt kids in school before. Sent two boys home with missing teeth and ripped a girl's hair out by the fistful the year before."

Lyle shook his head. "You're not a bully."

"I don't know, Lyle. You work for the government. Here's the scenario: the alpha bitch went and told the football team that my friend Lily was a slut who slept with faculty. So, the two boys went and cornered her in the locker room. Lily tried screaming for help, but of course, ye olde alpha bitch made sure the PE teachers were distracted."

"God."

"Yep. So I step in, break some deserving faces, and suddenly there's a zero-tolerance policy for hitting people, and I'm not being allowed to graduate Nacrene Middle. I just kind of left eighth grade." Then: "Oh, yeah. The other kids got trauma counseling, since they were _obviously_ the real victims. Lily changed schools. We lost touch when I moved here."

"That…that explains a lot."

"Explains why I'm psychotic?"

"It explains why you don't believe in the law."

Winnifred's face flushed. "I never said—"

"Your brother is a lawyer, and you don't like him very much. And with incidents like that, where the scumbags get off scott-free because of technicalities and loopholes…The law doesn't do anything for you. It's powerless to help you, but it still punishes you. So you screw the rules."

When Winnifred didn't say anything: "I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?"

"No! No, actually…that was the perfect thing to…Anyway!"

"Anyway."

Stupid perma-grinning blond boy sitting on her couch, listening and understanding and being such a stupid sweetheart. Stupid Lyle.

_God_.

"Anyway, there was a school that took me. Mistralton Private is a Trainer school. They look at grades, but they also look at things like temperament, like personality, like…well, like being able to afford tuition. I guess I said what they wanted to hear, and I spent age fourteen and fifteen living in the dorms."

"Trainer school! Exciting. I remember Ranger School was a blast. Pranks at night, group missions every other week, apprenticeships with actual Rangers…"

"Nope!"

"What's 'nope' this time?"

"Nope, that wasn't Trainer school. You get rental Pokemon that switch out every two weeks, four classes a day on actual school stuff, then two Trainer-related electives, and then daily match-ups. If you lost too much, your class ranking fell, and the lower it went, the less privileges you got."

"What, no late night TV?"

She smirked against her will. "When you put it that way, it's not much? But imagine being there with a bunch of self-absorbed, pretentious rich brats who swore their personal Pokemon were way better than the professionally-bred trash we had here. Ranking is everything. It changes people. It's funny, I like to think I had friends there at first."

"Did you lose?"

More proof that Winnifred Lambert was not, in fact, a decent person.

She couldn't help but be proud of it.

"I was the top battler there for two years running."

Lyle's eyebrows shot up.

"See, you got to choose your opponent if you wanted. I always went after the bullies and the know-it-alls and the mean girls. It was what I did at Nacrene Middle, just without my fists."

"You had the passion they didn't," Lyle observed. "They were just battling to battle. You went all-out."

"I _wrecked_ people, Lyle. It was bad, and really, if I weren't such an awful person, I'd feel bad for knocking Hayley Long all the way to bottom and causing her to drop out. But that was the week she kicked Mitchell Daly in the balls, broke his glasses, then told the teacher that he tried to touch her…Mitchell was the sweetest kid there. He gave everyone a card on Valentines' Day, even when nobody else did, and it was the only one I ever got."

"Hence, a match-up with Hayley…"

"I learned Cancel and Shield Break moves that week, and she was a class-cutter. 'Brutal' doesn't begin to cover it.

"My reputation caught up with me eventually. It's lonely at the top and all that." Winnifred glanced up and into Lyle's hazel stare. Her hand in his felt like it had been jammed into an electric socket. "The faculty rooted for me. The kids wanted to see me fail."

"You didn't care, though. I don't look at you and think, 'well, she cares what I think about her.'"

_I do, though. _

_Stupid boy problems. _

"My parents got back into my life, just in the last few months. It's a two-year program. You graduate at the end by passing the license test." She took a heaving breath. "And here we go."

"Somehow I don't think it went as badly as you think."

"Yeah, sure, Lyle. Wait until I tell you."

"I'm waiting."

"I was emailing my Mom, calling my Dad, telling them the good parts. I was winning a lot, my grades pulled back up, I already had dibs on the Oshawott. Forgot to mention, they give starters to the top graduates. The folks were prouder of me than they'd ever been. It made being alone bearable.

"Then they started talking about getting back together."

"They did _not_."

"I guess they were happy with me, so they were happy with each other? Don't get me wrong, I knew it was all shit. We were never going to be normal. The logic was just that Mom and Dad would…I don't know, start being human beings again? I'd graduate, we would meet at Dawson's school, and figure out where to go next."

Winnifred finished her soda and put the can on the carpet. She reached for a muffin and plucked the chocolate chips off.

"The day before my test, I got a choice. Use Oshawott, or use rando Pokemon like always. I took the Oshawott, and we kind of strutted around the halls. People took bets on how long it'd take me to fail the test, but I knew it inside and out. There's a capture portion, a Pokeball throw portion, and specific to the school, a battle against a board administrator. No Cancels, no Shield Breaks, no Wavedashes, none of that mess. A straight fight."

Lyle took a handful of discarded chocolate chips and ate them, one by one. "I still don't think it went as badly as you're going to tell me."

"The first part was easy. Five Permit Balls, you have to catch one Pokemon in the time limit. I caught two, and handed over the lousy Patrat. Zella went in my hoodie pocket."

"You wore a hoodie to your test?"

"_And_ I technically stole a Pokemon while I was there! Wonderful, right? The throw part came next."

Winnifred remembered incorrectly throwing Zella's ball to battle Roy's Lucario.

"The ball slipped from my hand. I almost forgot to maximize it, too, and that would have been an auto-fail. It made me nervous. And then the trouble started."

"What did you do?"

"The board member sent out an Ivysaur. Part of the test was to make us fight something we'd never seen."

"And bringing a Kanto Pokemon would do it," Lyle agreed.

"Oshawott got tossed like a ragdoll, but I didn't have to win to pass. Even if I whited out, if I showed I could follow battle procedures, I'd graduate with a license.

"That wasn't everyone else's rules, though. Did I mention these tests are held in an off-site arena where students and parents can come watch?"

And when Lyle's face paled: "I probably should have mentioned that, huh?"

"It's a mistrial, then! The school had to know it. You don't send a kid under your kind of pressure—"

"My Mom came, too."

A pause. Lyle: "Oh, god."

"Yep. I could lose here and finish school, but what else would really matter? I had to win. Win, win, _win_. So I did what I did to Hayley Long. I beat the horse crap out of that Ivysaur."

"What rules did you break?" Lyle asked reluctantly.

"I had Oshawott Wavedash to avoid the razor leaves, do a Razor Shell Cancel to put Ivysaur on the defensive, then hit it with a Shield Break Take Down. The faculty guy was beating on me for five minutes. I finished the fight in nine seconds."

Lyle went quiet.

"What's you're doing right now? Looking at me the way you are, like, _I can't believe she'd do that_? I got a stadium full of it.

"I failed, of course. Had to give Oshawott back, had to walk out of the stadium alone and go back to my dorm for another year until I could test again…Then Mom came out after me."

"That sounds dubious."

"'Dubious'. Good word choice." Then: "She wasn't paying for another year. Turns out Dad was never paying at all. So I was done at Mistralton Prep.

"I asked if we were going to meet Dad and Dawson. Maybe I could figure out what I wanted to do before taking the next test. It was just a year off, and if I wasn't in school, then I could test again with a permit Pokemon in three months.

"Mom told me this one thing, and it's the only bit of words that stuck in my mind: 'I think plans have been changed, my dear.' And then she left."

"Holy hell. Winnifred, I'm so—"

"They gave me until the end of the week to move out of the dorm, and I had no place to go. Dad called up at the last minute with a hook-up, saying I could work at his brother's hotel, with an uncle I saw once ten years ago, but the wait killed me. On the one hand, I had no idea what to do. I was like…do I find a hostel? Do I bum around and play 'real Trainer' for a while? Or was that dream done, and I had to get some retail job in some crum-bum town?

"And God, if I thought I was alone before, being on that campus after that victory was purgatory.

"See…I had never battled that hard before. I went all-out, and I made a point of never going all-out just in case I got challenged by someone wanting payback. I liked having a secret or two in the back pocket. I went all out and beat down a faculty member. I scared the student body."

Taking a shaky breath: "They were afraid of me, Lyle. And I didn't know I would care until I did."

"That's not a crime."

Winnifred blinked back to reality.

"Okay, yeah, your test was four ways of awful, but believe me: everyone cares what everyone else thinks. Maybe they don't believe they do, but they do."

"Bullshit."

"No, it's the truth. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here telling me everything, and I wouldn't have gotten my face kicked in by the world's most pretentious Trainer brigade. We care about some people, all the time. Not everybody, but some."

Winnifred rested her head against the sofa. "That's got to be the third time you threw some philosophical goop at me."

"I like the philosophical goop. It's comforting." He smiled.

"Comforting. Well, long story short, Dad made a last-minute call to the uncle I saw once when I was like, fresh out of the womb or something. I got a job here, and since living in the hotel felt like indentured servitude, I went online and found someone looking for a roommate. Here we are."

"Here we are," Lyle repeated.

"Hey," Winnifred said. "You've got some chocolate on your face. Right there."

He reached to wipe it off. Swing and a miss.

"Nah, hold still. Let me…"

Winnifred leaned forward and ran the pad of her thumb along the edge of Lyle's mouth. She felt the teenage boy stubble tickle at her nerves and catch under her nail, felt the warmth of his breathing and the strength of his jawline. Her hand lingered.

Lyle almost reached up to take it. In an instant he would hold both of Winnifred's small hands, would hold all of her, and she'd have no choice but to continue to tell him everything.

This right here, Winnifred realized, was what Mirelle joked about and what Mrs. Kott laughed at and what mothers warned their daughters of every day.

That impossible contradiction, where one lives her life the way she wants, for nobody else, in spite of family and faculty and all of the not-friends, and one person—one boy—comes along and manages to absorb her will into his own, in a wary and comforting embrace, and that struggle and that self-hatred goes silent.

Winnifred pulled her hand back from his face. And before Lyle could dare say a thing: "Have you had Mirelle's folks' hot chocolate? It's _amazing._ And we get it for free, since I've got honorary-daughter-from-another-mother status. Want one? I should get you one. Let's go."

-Lyle-

He had never heard a person speak so fast in his life.

Winnifred finished rambling, but she didn't move for another few seconds.

Lyle realized: she was nervous. Around him.

-Winnifred-

She got up from the sofa, washed the plate in the sink, put their soda cans in the cardboard box under the sink pretending to be a recycle bin, and after he put his shoes on, Winnifred and Lyle went down to the bakery. Winnifred let Lyle's hand away from hers no less than twice, once in the kitchen and then again when Lyle had to tie his shoe laces.

She snapped her hand away when Lyle pulled the door to the bakery open, and Mirelle's mother stood at the front register, adjusting the cupcake display behind the glass pane.

"Winnifred!" Mirelle's mother said, her voice oozing delight. "Oh, you found your _friend,_ I see."

_Your friend_.

_Did anyone _else_ want to comment on her boy problems? _

There were two kinds of moms in the world, Winnifred thought. Her own mom would probably go out of her way _not_ to meet her daughter's boyfriends. Mirelle's mom was the type to examine every guy that came sniffing around. Mirelle hated it. Winnifred wasn't sure she entirely disliked the attention.

Winnifred held up her two fingers. "I was wondering, can we get some hot chocolates? Two, please?"

"Of course, love. Extra whipped cream, I remember, and…for the young man?"

Mirelle's mom: also known as Mirelle-in-thirty-years, complete with smile lines and crow's feet.

"None for me, thanks," Lyle said. Maybe he forgot they were no longer two feet apart or something, because his voice was _quiet_.

Winnifred pointed to a small table in the back. The round oak tables came in different sizes, and the one by the very back, underneath two abstract portraits, was the tiniest as they came. Winnifred sat by the wall, resting her head in the corner nook. Lyle hunched forward in his chair.

"What's got you all worked up?" She asked.

"N-nothing."

"Every time you lie and stutter like that, a baby Mareep dies."

"That is vulgar and incorrect. I just happen to get nervous going to local places."

"Mirelle's mom isn't gonna bite your head off, and believe me, if she was the head-biter-off-er type, she'd have taken care of me a long time ago."

"I dunno—"

"No, really. Mirelle and I got into a food fight here last week, and the health inspector came in at the wrong time—"

"Not that. I mean, I don't know how…I guess, I always wanted to go into little shops like this. They're all around Aspartia Town, and I keep hearing from my supervisor how I need to visit them. I just never worked up the nerve to."

And then he perked _right_ back up. "So. Part two of the Winnifred Lambert story."

"There's a part two?"

"Yep. Part one ended with our heroine coming to Aspartia Town. Part two is about…"

"…About you-know-who."

"Here we are, then!" Mirelle mom cheered, carrying the two saucers with two steaming cups of hot chocolate. Lyle's cup ended at the rim with the thick brown liquid; Winnifred's tower of whipped cream, sprinkles, and the proverbial cherry on top stretched from the table up to her chin. Mirelle's mom handed her a spoon.

"Don't eat it too fast," said the older woman. "Last time you did that, you gave yourself the r—"

"_Mom!_"

Prentending to remember Lyle was there: "Oh! Oops! Sorry about that." A grin and she was back at the front counter. A group of college-age kids had just come in.

Winnifred ate the tip of the whipped cream tower face-first.

"You called her 'mom'," Lyle said.

"I do that," Winnifred wiped the whipped cream from her chin. "Mirelle's family, it was their idea."

"Right," Lyle said, unconvinced.

"So. Part two. It was my first month here, and like me in the rest of this pathetic story, I was _still_ lonely. Hell, I don't think I got better until…Well, until this point."

Lyle sipped his drink.

"I heard about the Underground way back in Mistralton Prep. One of the scumbags' older brothers was down here, or something. They had an online message board that kept changing the address, and it wasn't for messaging per se, so much as it just told you where to go. I searched it with the web address I'd gotten right before moving. The link still worked."

"That was the first night you…"

"Not the first night I _battled_, no way. I had epic stage fright. It was one thing to beat kids your own age. I don't know about you, Lyle, but Roy and his pals are scary."

"Oh, yeah. You definitely seemed scared last night."

"That was a façade. Façade? English lit word meaning 'false exterior'?"

"That's not exactly what it means…."

"I watched the fights for a while," Winnifred continued, the whipped cream almost devoured. "But I knew I had to fight eventually. Remember with Miriam, how she had to fight sometime? That was me, I had to fight eventually. So I went into the ring one night, and people were already taking bets."

A nostalgic grin: "Imagine their surprise when I didn't have a legal Pokeball. Or even a license."

"That didn't go well," Lyle assumed.

"Almost. This one, believe it or not, is proof that there is some kind of a God out there."

"You believe in God."

"I believe that I don't know anybody well enough to talk religion with, because religion is the destroyer of relationships, and I believe that it was otherwise _complete dumb luck_ that Michael was there that night."

Lyle downed another gulp of hot chocolate. Really, Mirelle's mom served them bowls with handles and called them cups.

"First, the crowd was going to just scatter. I was gonna get them all thrown in jail if I ratted them out in public. _Then_ they realized I could rat them out. There were threats. I will admit, I got very, _very_ scared.

"Enter Michael, the boss-man declaring that if someone stepped forward to unlock my ball, they got the money and I was a legal fighter. To prove the point, he unlocked the ball himself. And that was my first battle."

"You won the battle, that night."

Winnifred rolled her eyes. "Of _course_ I won. I decimated the other guy. Blitzerella wasn't the ass-kicking machine she is now, but she was never a slouch, either. Made me the faux-famous heroine I am today.

"And the next time I had a match, I showed up and the thing was cancelled. Imagine my surprise when Michael the Metal Arm is there, taking me to some fancy restaurant instead." Winnifred flung a hand out. "And so began that disaster of a relationship. Which I'm not telling you about, so don't bother asking."

Lyle pushed his empty cup-bowl-thing aside. "I wasn't going to ask. Asking about someone's past is one thing. Their relationships are different. I know I wouldn't go around talking about my…"

"…About the people important to you?" Winnifred suggested.

"People that should be, yeah."

"Lyle Forrester, you summed up more of my life in that sentence than I have all afternoon."

Winnifred stood and returned the empty cups and saucers to the bin by the exit. She lingered by the door and Lyle followed, though his eyes seemed to scan the bakery meticulously, indulging in the details. Lyle could go into Aspartia Gym on his own, but he was afraid of neighborhood restaurants.

That shouldn't have made sense, but it did.

The same way it didn't make sense to take Lyle back to the apartment, but she did it anyway.

There was nothing left to tell him. Nothing that Winnifred would ever tell another soul, because nobody else wanted to hear about how Michael would lash out and yell at her, or the handful of times he got mad and hit her for things she didn't even do.

But Winnifred had been on this earth long enough to know: these moments, these stolen afternoons were precious. So they ended up back in Winnifred and Mirelle's main room, right where they had started.

Quick, Winnifred. Think of something to do. Look busy, so he doesn't get bored and realize it's time to go.

_Because clearly, I'm keeping him against his will_.

When in doubt, wash dishes. Winnifred took off for the kitchenette with a motor on her legs. Lyle fumbled along and stopped her in her tracks, because When had they started this hand-holding mess again?

"Here's a question, Miss Lambert." Lyle ran a finger along the black band at her wrist. "What's the hair tie for?"

And meeting her stare: "You pull your hair up when you fight, and you've got that one glove you wear, too."

"There's also a belt," Winnifred admitted. "Were you taking notes?"

"Ranger School trick. The devil is in the details."

"That is a thing people say."

"So, what's the hair tie for?"

Winnifred's feet meandered. She settled for leaning against the kitchenette counter and drawing Lyle's arm out. He came toward her instead. The rope of their arms pulled taut, then relaxed.

She glued her stare to her wrist. It was either that or the spot on Lyle's face where he smudged that chocolate.

And now his breath smelled like chocolate…

"It's a Trainer School trick," Winnifred whispered. Revealing the tricks of the trade, or talking just to keep talking?

_Talking because this was about to become a Boy Disaster?_

"They made the girls pull their hair back, to keep from distracting us from the action. The boys had to have short hair." Then, smiling at the memory: "The faculty was a bunch of hair fascists."

"Hair in somebody's face is a distraction?" Lyle ran his other hand along his growing bangs. A few golden strands had started peeking past his eyebrows. "Note to self: cut this before fighting super-duper-Covenant-bums again."

"You could always pull it back or something. Like this, watch."

She pulled the hair tie up and brought it to her fingertips. Then she reached back and pulled her straggly mahogany mane into its tail and tied it twice around, acutely aware that Lyle's hand was still there, now resting on her wrist while she moved. She had to let his hand go to finish the ponytail.

Lyle's hand didn't come back. It apparently found a new home in her hair.

"This guy right here," Lyle said of the hair that always poked out over her forehead, "He's kind of a jerk."

"_You're_ kind of a jerk."

"Am not."

"You're making fun of my hair in his house. That's rude, Lyle."

"Probably." Cue the doofy Lyle grin. "Sorry, Mister Hair."

Lyle flicked the strand gently. His hands were clearly not on the same page.

Left hand: caught in her hair, playing with it and probably noticing she hadn't washed it today and how it was probably gross.

Right hand: dropping slowly, coming to rest at her hip, just below her waist, catching right where she porked out over her jeans, because that's what happens when you live above a bakery and eat pastries that cute boys bring you to apologize for getting only kind of mad.

_Boy problems._

_Houston: we have a Boy Tragedy in progress. _

Left hand: maneuvering down to her hip, because greasy hair was disgusting, and now he wanted some of that lovely love handle.

Right hand: wrapping the frayed edge of her purple Invader Zim shirt in his fingers, the tips tickling at her skin.

Winnifred's hands ran along Lyle's forearms. As if there were anyplace else to go.

-Lyle-

"I'm glad you're not my partner," Lyle said, his voice barely above audible. "Let me say, this doesn't feel very professional."

Because Winnifred Lambert was so professional before this. Wandering moping around this morning, feeding her, listening to her story and groping her hand was _so_ professional.

Feeling the softness at her midsection was _oh, so professional._

Oh, hell. Did he just say that out loud, too?!

"No, this does not feel professional, Mister Forrester," Winnifred said. The eyes he could die in started to pull back. If he let her keep talking…

She kept going: "We should probably—"

-Winnifred-

_Score._

* * *

'It was at that point, your honor, that I accepted I was, in fact, writing a love story.'

Thanks for reading and sticking around for these kids. Thanks quadruple if you've read from the start, and let me know what you think in a review!


	10. Homecoming I

Winnifred and Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

Homecoming – Part 1

-Lyle-

True to her word, Cossette had Lyle's Styler fixed by the next morning. He took the train to Aspartia Gym again, though this time, he didn't get the run-around at the front entrance. The doors pulled open to reveal the attack Styler nub resting in a plain cardboard box. Lyle removed the box and stepped outside. The doors shut behind him, and the locks slid into place.

Not that he wanted to see the Covenant today, anyway. Though using their underground tunnel network—courtesy of Cheren—would have made the trip faster.

When Lyle got to his hotel room, he pulled off the dirty clothes he made the trek in, pulled the blinds open for the dawn sunlight, and popped the attack nub back into the complete Styler base.

One missed call. Lyle tapped the missed message. It rang once.

"If I were any other supervisor in this building, Ranger, I would have terminated your file last night at 11:59."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Yes Ma'am _what?" _

Lyle stumbled around the garbage at the floor, searching in vain for an unopened pack of Pop Tarts or a Cup Noodle. "Yes Ma'am, thank you ma'am for being so gracious and wonderful?"

"That's more like it." This was where his supervisor would rub her eyes. "Tell me that lead you were working on actually panned out. I need to give my bosses _something_."

Lyle tried crouching and searching under one of the beds. Bad move: his lower back screamed. Lava Cookies don't heal _everything_. "That's not a problem," Lyle said. "Though you won't like what I have to report."

"Any news is better than no news."

"I'm working with Covenant Operatives and a local."

Because if they hadn't already fired him for missing two contact deadlines…

"The Covenant," said the Head Operator, slowly, drawing out each syllable. "The Covenant is involved."

"XD-01 was confirmed to be…I wrote it out in the report."

"The one you scribbled seconds before calling me back, right. I remember." A pause while she flipped through other screens. "Michael is documented to have that particular Shadow Pokemon. It does stand to reason…What are the Covenants' motives?"

Lyle ran his hands along his face, failing to rub the sleep off. He forgot to shower before going out again. Particularly-girly-coconut-conditioner-smell lingered on his fingers.

"Michael is having a fundraiser in Hilbert Towers two days from now. Covenant Operative Wes plans to intercept Michael the Metal Arm. Myself and the other Operatives are to integrate ourselves into the crowd and await further orders."

"So one of our Rangers is reduced to back-up manpower. Flattering, Lyle. Making us all look good." Then: "And what of this civilian?"

Right. What _of_ this civilian?

As if right on bloody time, a pop-up on his computer screen, beside the Styler.

FrontDeskSupport: Hi! =D

FrontDeskSupport: I mean, hi. =I -srsly, wini is srs.

The 'new message' chimes bounced off the walls. Lyle flicked off the alert system and swiped the messages away.

Head Operator: "I'm waiting…"

"The civilian has a history with the Metal Arm, as well as social influence among his peers. She works with us as a guide, nothing more."

That sounded plausible and not like over-selling, right?

Lyle's supervisor hummed. He could _hear_ the pursed lips. "This is acceptable, if only thanks to Covenant involvement. If they were going full-vigilante, there would be signs of laws broken and violence taken. If this goes bunk and the XD-01 operation fails, at the very least, we will be able to trace Wes's location."

Lyle stopped. "Trace his location? Why?"

"Covenant Operative Wes may have been a hero at one point, but since then, he's only succeeded in attacking corporations and intervening in capital interests. He's yet to answer for singlehandedly keeping Silph Co. from entering Kalos three years ago."

"That's a _good_ thing. Silph Co. is just Team Rocket's façade." He felt a warmth in his hands. _Façade_.

The Head Operator raised her voice. "It's _not_ a good thing to place detonators in buildings, threaten executives, and introduce to the most recent UN addition the idea that laws are just opinions. We already have these Calem and Serena characters to deal with, and who _knows_ how they'll take that idea…"

"So you'd rather let Team Rocket—Team _Rocket_—get into Kalos."

"If that means abiding by the laws that govern our society, _yes_, Ranger, it does." Then: "You'd be surprised how many Covenants have ruined their lives with acts of international terrorism. The fact that Red's Mt. Silver is a diplomatic gray zone between Kanto and Johto should tell you something."

Lyle clenched his fists.

"I'm looking at the report here," she continued. "Only Wes is listed by name. Who are these other operatives?"

"I don't have their names yet—"

"I swear, Ranger. If you're protecting them—"

"I wouldn't dream of it. That'd be acting above the law, wouldn't it?"

The supervisor seemed to think it over. She ultimately let it rest. "Next contact is in 72 hours. Please, _try_ and keep track of time."

The line went dead.

Lyle sat on the less-messy of the two mattresses, scooted back, and let his legs dangle over the edge.

The computer screen flashed once, twice, _thrice_ in the span of a minute. Lyle didn't notice.

Wes really was a criminal. What did that make Dawn, Nate, and Cossette? And hell, they had that air of pretention to them, but these people were not convicts. Biker Roy, that was a convict.

People that rose to the ranks of Trainer Gods, then threw it away to fight injustice at the expense of their livelihood…How could that be anything _but_ noble?

A knock on the door. Lyle stood, bent backwards to crack his back, and approached the door. Pulling it open and announcing: "No thanks, ma'am."

"No thanks ma'am, what?"

Lyle blinked. "Winnifred?"

"You were expecting someone else?" A scrunched-up smile, hands behind her back, and that stupid strand of hair still sticking out, even when the rest of it flowed around her. She glowed. "Maybe someone with your shirt?"

He looked down when she gestured. Lo and behold.

Lyle escaped back into his room.

…

"You're sure this is how you want to spend your lunch hour? Running missions isn't nearly as relaxing as…well, lunch."

Winnifred stumbled as the train took a sharp turn. They goofed up and caught one of the express trains: bodies compressed all around the two. If Lyle's heart didn't bust out of his chest last night, it probably never would, but this still wasn't helping that nervousness.

Winnifred _herself_ wasn't helping. Let it be known: cherry-red lip gloss is a cruel mistress.

She reached to his arm, bent her head, and read the directions from his Styler screen. "I guess we're getting close. Three…no, two more stops." She glanced out the windows. "Though we're all the way out in suburbia. I guess that's the adventure part of it, right?"

When she said 'adventure', Winnifred's eyes outright glowed.

She caught him watching. Lyle blinked away.

The train screeched around another curve.

Neither of them brought up what happened the previous afternoon, and Lyle knew better than to bring it up himself. It was weird: he always thought kissing a girl solved your issues, and everything went smoothly from there. False: all that does is bring your issues to the surface. Nothing had really changed after Lyle left Winnifred's apartment, after approximately fifteen minutes of kissing—

Of…making out?

That didn't do it justice, either. Maybe that's what you called it when you were with girls routinely, and these feelings were apart of the everyday. 'Making out' was for people that knew what they wanted; 'kissing' was reserved for little teeny-boppers on February 14.

The way Winnifred had let his hands wander, slowly and stumbling, while she held her hands at around neck like a lifeline, was something to itself.

"So," Lyle said, waiting for Winnifred to stop looking at him with that 'gotcha!' expression. With her stupid black skinny jeans and button down that was two sizes too large, and together somehow made a work uniform.

"So!" She boasted. " Mission: Deliver the Mail!" Then: "We'll have to pose when we get out at the next stop. Stupid cramped metal tube train."

Winnifred was true to her promise. The two of them were the only ones getting off at Lime Street, the quaint hub of a quiet neighborhood twenty miles out from the main city. The platform was the first Lyle had seen to be located at ground level, with only a ticket machine and a few benches to signal the train stop. The train pulled away as quickly as it arrived, eager to leave and return to the city.

"Ready?"

"For…what?" Lyle asked.

"On three. One, two, three! Mission—"

Winnifred spun too quickly, too excitedly, and almost blinded him with her hair whip. Lyle ducked under it, then performed his backflip motion.

"—Start!" Winnifred cheered, thumbs up. Then: "Lyle, you goofed it! We're supposed to finish at the same time?"

"Yeah, but you're supposed to take into account your hair becoming a weapon."

She instinctively gathered the web of mahogany and held it in her hands. Winnifred was _this_ close to issuing an apology, but then she shrugged her tiny shoulders and skipped—skipped!—to the main sidewalk.

_Some_thing had changed since yesterday, Lyle thought.

The Styler beeped at him. New message, unknown address. Only Ranger HQ had his Styler address, so what would be the point of hiding their information? He flicked the message across the screen to open it.

…And immediately wished he hadn't.

...

-Winnifred-

Lyle was a strange boy. She knew that going in, when he infamously jumped _six feet in the air_ to go fight Roy that first time, when they ran in the city tunnels. Thinking about it still brought a smirk to her lips. _Six feet in the air. Who _does_ that? _

He had acted strangely during all of their Ranger Missions up to this point, and today was no excuse. Lyle read his Styler message back at the train station, and he spent the rest of the time either staring back at it, or moving like the invisible man, crashing into things half the time and going completely unresponsive at others.

She was fine with that, though. It meant Winnifred did all the talking. _She_ had to introduce herself to Richardson, their twenty-something client who lived in a shack across from the dollar store. _She_ had to handle the package that was delivered to his home instead of his ex-girlfriend's, and _she _had to hear that it contained the medicine for her Munna.

It also meant it fell to Winnifred to bring up yesterday.

She didn't want to.

Every time Winnifred tried to use words and vocalize her relationships, they went down in flames. Her parents had argued for years, but when it came time to finally talk about it, _bam_, divorce. Her parents always got annoyed with her school fighting, but when they sat down to talk about it, _bam_, Trainer School. And hell, living with her parents and fighting bullies with her bare knuckles weren't even things she liked.

She liked Lyle.

She liked the hand-holding, she liked how he was only ever awkward when he was afraid he would be, and how it meant he was natural and calm and charming with her. Then, there was how Winnifred liked that someone, somewhere, actually had played with her ridiculous hair and held her at her sides. That was never supposed to happen. Nobody ever smooched and groped the school outcast.

Because, be real, Winnifred: nobody outgrows being the school outcast.

The instant she asked what all of it meant, it put the ball in Lyle's court. It let him end whatever this was.

They appreciated the peace of the suburban world, walking along the roads with houses whose backyards stretched for solid miles, with curbs that ended without sidewalks, so they could walk however they chose. Winnifred watched for cars, then walked right in the middle of the road, feet following the yellow paint in a perfectly straight line, arms out wide for balance. At first, Lyle simply shook his head disapprovingly, then watched behind them religiously for cars. After he accepted that nobody lived out this way, or at least nobody with silent-but-deadly killing machines on wheels, he tiptoed along the edge of the neighbors' lawns, arms wide.

They had to arrive eventually.

The ex-girlfriend didn't recognize the package at first. Winnifred had to explain four different ways that it was medicine for a certain sick Munna, and that it had simply been delivered to the wrong destination. Winnifred knew in one look why she broke up with poor Richardson: ironed slacks, a business jacket, hair up in a tight bun, and a Blackberry in her off hand. Just headed off to work.

_A slacker and a young go-getter_, Winnifred mused. _Tale as old as time. _

The woman took the package and tossed it onto the hardwood floor. She opened the door just enough for her slim form to slide through, and then she shut it and turned the lock.

"Your girlfriend is a dick," Winnifred told the slacker guy back at his apartment. After he paid them, of course.

Before Lyle could chide her: "Who are _you_ telling?" Followed by an offer for a Taco Bell run. Winnifred had to turn it down, and she wasn't sure she would have if not for lunch hour being almost over.

"The thing about these missions is," Winnifred said as she tip-toed along the street line, passing run-down residences that stretched onto infinity, "You've gotta be a wizard at time management. I'm all _about_ time management. Try busting a Wavedash-slide-to-Charge Tackle with a Pokemon you just got. It's _all_ timing."

Lyle wasn't listening. He ran his hand along the Styler screen again, this time pressing a bunch of buttons as he walked. Winnifred stopped, and he didn't notice for another few moments. Lyle finally glanced up, and it as though he were in a battle somewhere else, eyes both like slits and like stone.

"Lyle?"

He froze.

"What's up?"

Still nothing.

"If it's about what I said to that guy, his girlfriend really was a—"

"Move!"

The next think Winnifred knew, a muscular mass of teenage boy was crashing into her with the force of a linebacker, knocking both of them onto the dead lawn across the street and having it crunch against her work clothes. The black convertible rolled past, honking the horn twice as if to laugh, and kept chugging along. They lay there, both breathing hard, Lyle's off-brand-mint-toothpaste breath along her collarbone.

"Sorry," Lyle finally said.

"For saving my life, you mean?"

"I should have said something sooner. I should have heard the car. Walking and texting…"

"Bad combination?"

"Almost as bad as you on the front grate of that asshole's car."

"I'm just all about bad combinations, huh?"

Winnifred would look up on the computer back at work: were Rangers allowed to blush that hard? Or was that just the one she had?

…_Her_ Ranger.

_Great_. Now her own cheeks had gone ablaze.

One of them managed to be responsible. Lyle crawled off of her, up to a crouch and then jumping, kicking out his black converse feet from under. He offered a hand. Winnifred took it, then immediately wished she hadn't.

"I'm not getting that back, am I?" Lyle asked.

It rubbed her the wrong way.

Put a gun to Winnifred's head, and she couldn't tell you why that comment had her dropping Lyle's fingers and walking off. Maybe it had something to do with him being the first one to actually, well, _mention_ the grabbiness.

And of course, when he did, it was sarcasm.

That might make a girl a bit ticked. Maybe. Or something. Whatever.

She started into the road again, but Lyle jogged to her side. "You should probably stick to the not-sidewalk."

"_You_ should go back to texting whoever lives on your screen thing."

He cracked a smile. "Can I hold your hand, Miss Lambert?"

"Not _now_." And then she held her hand out at her side. But she'd be damned if she was gonna _look at it_.

The moment lingered. Winnifred glanced back at him, and Lyle was watching the road again. He watched her for a quick moment, as though she'd just run off when he wasn't looking, then one more glance to the road.

"_What? _Is the car going to race down here again and—"

-Lyle-

Kissing Winnifred was shutting his brain off and reveling in the peace.

He had to do it fast, _fast_, before he lost what little nerve was in him. The anger at the messages, at his Head Operator, at the dick that drove a billion miles an hour, at the woman who would give her Pokemon medicine when it fit her schedule, all of it turned to rocket fuel. Lyle shot for her, his body a missile. They bumped against an innocent homeowner's chainlink fence. No car in the driveway, and no motor engine sounds for at least a few miles out. Brain: off.

Last night had been different. It was all tentative, it was all new. Kissing a girl was new; Kissing _Winnifred _was never in the rulebook. In the back of his mind, he had been waiting for it to go like those dramas, for her small hands to push him back and throw him out of the apartment, then to label him a creeper and probably ruin his life.

Right now, not only was Winnifred okay with having been kissed, she was asking to hold hands. Asking, in her own backwards Winnifred Lambert way.

There was a fine line between not taking hints and being straight dumb. Lyle was anti-social, awkward, afraid to go into small cafes, prone to flaking out and particularly prone to sabotaging his family. But he was not dumb.

Winnifred kept her arms out, linking her petite fingers along the rusted fence and kissing him back, clearly focused on mocking Lyle with quick tastes of cherry lip gloss.

Right hand: holding-and-this-close-to-basically-clawing at her hip, appreciating the thin fabric of her work pants and how they hugged the soft cloud curve. Then, reaching back and grabbing her behind—a heart attack to itself!—and pulling her closer, closer.

Left hand: cradling her head, running his fingertips at the back of her head. Then, running down along her collar and toward her chest, while his lips divert to the soft skin along girl's radiating neck—

Winnifred: "Lyle? Car!"

Black Convertible Driver Who Clearly Is Lost But Doesn't Want To Slow Down: "Get a room!"

…

"So, I'm thinking we need some ground rules."

Rush-hour traffic leaving Aspartia Town? A nightmare. Traffic going back? Empty train ride, and _still_, they sat shoulder to shoulder, hands folded on Winnifred's thigh. A crimson blush remained along those bulbous cheeks, an irresistible detail replacing the obliterated-but-memorable lip gloss.

"Ground rules, definitely," Lyle agreed. "No grabbing you in the middle of the road."

"No referring to it as 'grabbing me', because that sounds like you're forcing yourself on me, or something."

Taking a risk: "W-which I'm not?"

"No, you're not."

The train doors opened at the next station. Nobody got on, and nobody got off. And onward the train went.

"No kissing me," Winnifred choked on the K-word, "when I'm being a grouch."

"Because that's a consent issue, where I'm obviously ignoring your problems and instead going for—"

"I will stop you _right the hell there_ and say No, it's because I'm…You'll laugh at me."

"I didn't laugh when you beat the crap out of your License test proctor."

She raised her other hand, as if to argue, then let it drop.

"You know how, when you're with someone, there are rules that you just kind of learn?"

What he wanted to say: "Not really, nope."

"With Michael, it was…well, he didn't like me very much."

What he wanted to say: "You're flawed…where, exactly?"

"He liked me as a person, but let's just say he kept reminding me I wasn't the prettiest person in the world. Part of that was, _I_ could never kiss _him_. I was barely ever alone with him, and if I did anything first, he'd feel embarrassed. Like I wasn't good enough for him, I guess.

"And before you can _think_ to refute that, because you're a do-gooder and so you're the exact kind of boy to tell a girl she's the greatest thing in the world, I'll cut to the chase. Don't kiss me when I'm mad, because I'll start getting mad just to get you to do it, because I'm too much of a chicken shit to do it myself, because…well, I've never done it before." And looking right at him: "I've never started a kiss before."

And immediately: "I knew it! Lyle! You're _laughing_ at me!"

"Well, yeah. Who said I thought you were the greatest thing in the world? Have you _seen_ my room? My adoration belongs to ramen noodles."

…

-Winnifred-

He got weird _right_ when they stepped off the train platform. She had tried justifying it before, how Lyle could get her heart racing, and then go so distant that reaching out across a nebula would be a cinch in comparison. The rest of the short walk to the hotel, Winnifred figured she would be volleying the conversation ball back and forth, following the routine they slowly but surely were developing. But _no_, the universe screamed as it ripped Lyle to the cosmos. Hands went in his pockets, head craned down and eyes glued to his shoes. Winnifred popped her lips and muttered a "So…" once each.

"I didn't tell you what the messages were about," he finally said. Uncle Howard's hotel loomed the next block over, the afternoon sun bathing it in a gentle orange glow.

She turned to stare up at him. And when it didn't work, Winnifred walked directly in front of him and got on her tip-toes, closing the few inches between them.

"It wasn't _that_ important, was it? Not like it pulled you away from saving my life."

"You're not letting that go, are you?"

She shook her head, grinning from ear to ear. "You saved my life, Lyle Forrester, and even if saying it that way makes pushing me out of the road and smooching me sound way more dramatic than it was, I'll say it however I darn well feel."

Lyle threw his head back, his blond hair flying and his glasses riding further up the bridge of his nose. "You'll rip my balls off for this."

"I will not."

"Rip my balls out and put them where my eyes go, and rip my eyes out and put them where my balls go."

"I made that phrase up! Fifteen cents for copyright fees, please."

Then, staring her in the eye: "You'll have a message to go to room 28. Nate's waiting to talk to you."

Winnifred slowly lowered herself. "Talk about what?"

Thirty seconds later—that was being generous—Winnifred banged on the door of room 28. Lyle leaned on the wall by room 25, down the hall and out of range. She saw the tumbleweed of hair before the door swung back all the way and pushed herself inside.

"Sheesh, nice to see you, too," Nate said. There was another girl in the room, with a white beanie cap and that ridiculous skirt-and-winter-boots combination. "Running in here seconds after a message. Man, the IM system here is timely as hell."

"Save it. Where do you get off using Lyle to get to me?"

"…Come again?"

"You messaged Lyle about getting me involved in some stupid Covenant scheme. He told me, so there's no use in lying about it."

"God, I didn't know you two were an old couple." Then, gesturing to the girl: "That's Dawn, by the way. Covenant of Light, Sinnoh designation. Pretty fierce with an electric type."

Dawn waved. Winnifred nodded.

She turned back to Nate, and found Lyle closing the room door and leaning on the frame. Trapping her in? Or staying along the walls and keeping out of it?

Either way, he certainly wasn't sticking up for her. I mean, duh. What kind of boy did _that? _

"This was the best we could do," Nate continued. "You're an average joe, so we couldn't bring you into our command center. Which we do have." He added a wink. Then: "So we got a room here, figuring it'd be easy to get in touch."

"I don't want to be in touch. I don't want anything to do with you."

"Is this because our boss knocked your boyfriend's teeth out? It wasn't anything personal."

Dawn _jumped_. "What Nate is _trying_ to say is, we have a mission that requires someone close to our target. We understand if you have prior commitments, or if you simply don't feel up to it. But since we didn't know your answer, we couldn't invite you to our headquarters."

"Hence the room. I get it," Winnifred sighed. She folded her arms. "What's the big emergency that two of the greatest Trainers ever need my help?"

Dawn smiled. "We're not the greatest—"

"Dawn from Sinnoh, right? Team Galactic incident. You beat down Dialga, and there are rumors on the Internet that you kept Palkia after catching it with a Great Ball. Then beat the Elite Four and went on to take out Giratina with said Palkia.

"Then Nate here, he's the reason Aspartia Town got so famous. Team Plasma tried to make a come-back and started the Kruyem Incident, so Nate stepped in and finished it. He's also one of the only Trainers to beat Iris since she became Unova Champion.

"Am I right? Or did I not spend enough time online recently?"

Nate and Dawn traded glances, Nate with that stupid smirk he always wore, and Dawn with her eyes wide and concerned.

Dawn pressed on. "Even Trainers with our reputations need help. Our mission plan hit an unforeseen complication."

"Trainers with your reputations...what makes you think I'd be any good in a fight against—"

"It would be a noncombat role," Dawn said. "Lyle and myself would be the offensive force. Nate is to remain incognito. You would be with him."

Nate winked.

Ugh.

Winnifred put a hand to her head. "You guys do realize that I forgot to do the reading for this lecture."

"Ranger Man over there didn't tell you everything?" Nate asked, gesturing to Lyle but keeping his gaze fixed on Winnifred. "What the hell have you been doing with him all this time, then?"

The conversation lulled. Lyle had gone full-catatonia, but hopefully, that meant Nate couldn't get anything from him.

Dawn recognized the tension in the room, somewhere between Nate and Lyle glowering at one another, and the moment when Winnifred could actually hear her own heartbeat. Dawn sat on the edge of the bed. Her gloved hands fiddled with the edges of her scarf.

"Michael the Metal Arm has invited his entire team of advisors for a gathering, two days from now." She was unfazed by Nate's shock. "Winnifred has a point: if we're drafting her, she has a right to know why." And back to Winnifred herself: "It's the annual Aspartia Town Homecoming, in Hilbert Towers. We Covenant Operatives, with the assistance of Ranger Lyle, are planning espionage."

"That's the most exclusive event in southern Unova," Winnifred said.

"Exactly. Michael is using the exclusivity as a cover to bring his men together. We managed to obtain tickets through means…not exactly mentionable in an un-bug-checked room." She laughed as this was mentioned. Dawn clearly wasn't the type to take herself seriously. "The problem is, the tickets are for couples."

"Couples?" Winnifred said, gritting her teeth. "How wonderfully convoluted."

"Our engineer did some perfectly-legal-tinkering with the guest list to put myself, Nate, and Lyle on the guest list. Unfortunately, we do not have time to send for another girl Covenant member."

"Well, what about your boss?"

Nate's eyebrows twitched. "What do you know about Wes?"

"He's the one that beat up Lyle. He's head honcho here, right? We live in a free country, Nate. Take this Wes guy as your date and leave me out of it."

Before Nate could intervene, Dawn jumped in: "Wes has his own mission agenda. Our attending the homecoming event has its own mission requirements separate from….Plus, it would be appreciated if you refrained from mentioning his name. We _are_ a secret organization."

I mean, come on. Holy shit, it's _Nate _and _Dawn. _And Nate was a stalker dick, but _Dawn!_

Winnifred nodded, very sure that if Nate had asked instead, she'd be shouting Wes's name from the walls. Granted, she _did_, but she could suppress the fangirl inside for another few minutes.

This _would_ only take a few more minutes. Winnifred knew exactly where this was heading. "You want me to get an invitation to Michael's thingy, don't you."

"It would require no work on your end," Dawn promised. "Our engineer had to add her own code, in a month-long project, to get our names on the Hilbert Towers Homecoming guest list. The database either has codes generating new invites, or it searches for individuals that have been invited before, and re-activates them." She paused. "In English, it means we only have time to generate an invitation for someone who's already been to a Hilbert Towers event."

"And that would be me," Winnifred sang.

"That would be you. As I said, the mission has Nate running reconnaissance. All you have to do is stay with him for the evening. Michael should be busy with Noel, so the possibility of the two of you meeting is—"

"Who's _Noel_?"

"Michael's new squeeze," Nate provided. "Some uppity chick from all the way out in Fiore. She's packing Pokeballs, but there's no record of her beating a league or anything. She _might_ be a convict." And finally, with a sadistic grin: "You jelly?"

Winnifred's laugh actually made Nate flinch. "Please. You know why this is a couples' event? Michael is so insecure, so goddamn _insecure_, that he's afraid if he lets this girl wander, she'll get chatted up. He's a jealous whackjob." To Dawn: "If he's got…what, Noel, you said it was? If Mike's with her, he won't even notice I'm alive."

Of course, if anyone tracked Winnifred's blood pressure, they would have seen a spike the instant Michael having a new girlfriend was brought up. But that wasn't fair to Michael, though, even if he was a psychopath. People move on, and they're allowed to. After all, Lyle was…Nope. Not right now, Winnifred.

"I'm stuck with Nate," she groaned. "Fine, whatever. And I can't believe I'm saying this, because clearly nobody in this room gives a hell what I want, but read my lips. I'm not involved with this Metal Arm stuff after the homecoming. I'm only doing this if you promise to never contact me again. Capice?"

Dawn bowed her head. Nate unfolded his arms in a 'who, me?' pose.

"Good." And storming out, fast enough that Lyle knew to step to the side and pull the door open: "I've got to get back to work."

It wasn't even a blatant lie. Winnifred gave it ten minutes at the front desk. She didn't see Nate or Dawn come down and leave, meaning they were probably going to stay there and keep an eye on her until the homecoming mess.

"Great," Winnifred sighed. She threw her head back. "_Another_ homecoming."

"I thought those were only for high school jocks and the cheerleaders that snog them," Mac called from his office.

She leaned forward and jarred the computer mouse. The IM window came back up, and she closed the waiting room 28 messages. A certain 'room14' was still online.

FrontDeskSupport: I do _not_ appreciate being 'drafted' by a bunch of famous hipsters with beanies and gloves.

Room14: Wat?

FrontDeskSupport: Nor do I appreciate having them in my hotel.

FrontDeskSupport: Or needing to take tomorrow off to buy a dress.

FrontDeskSupport: Or not being told that ORRE INCIDENT WES beat your face in!

FrontDeskSupport: ORRE INCIDENT WES and GALACTIC INCIDENT DAWN! AAHHH!

FrontDeskSupport: OR still having your handprint on my ass.

Room14: This is your life, your life is amazing.

FrontDeskSupport: UGH.

_Right. _Lyle was back in his room. No more mister awkward, quiet guy.

She pushed the keyboard aside and ran her hands along her face. One, then two messages beeped.

Room14: Sorry about the handprint.

Room 14: =D

FrontDeskSupport: I am going to scream.

Room14: Covenants are not my cup of tea, either. But thanks for agreeing.

FrontDeskSupport: You owe me for this. Helping, I mean.

Room14: Well, I'm not allowed to kiss you when you're mad...

Winnifred raised her hands from the keyboard. Her fingers went rigid and twitchy.

FrontDeskSupport: DO NOT THROW MY WORDS AT ME.

Room14: Oh, man. She'll handhold me to death.

FrontDeskSupport: Excuse me? I'm not playing!

Room14: k

She stared at the screen, eyes filling with red.

K? _K?_

Winnifred leapt over the desk, vaulting like an Olympian. Mac called something behind her, some mess about leaving the desk alone. She didn't care. She climbed the stairs, turned the corner hard enough that she actually gave her own neck whiplash, and stopped at the door to room 14. She raised a fist to it—

The door pulled open. Lyle stood there with that same blank, awkward look he had back in Nate and Dawn's room, that same spaced-out stare where some people had a resting bitch-face and somehow Lyle had resting _gorgeous_…

She crossed inside, leaned her body against the door, and bam, they were right where they were on the side of the road, picking up where they left off at her apartment.

"This wasn't fair," Winnifred said when Lyle broke from her lips and started to kiss her cheek, hands working to unbutton her shirt. "You got me mad."

"Just to get you to relax. Ranger skill: defuse the civilian before they snap at a bystander."

Lyle didn't pull her shirt off once the final button came undone, either because he didn't dare to or just didn't think to. He ran his hands around her sides, and she could feel the callouses on his fingers as they moved, slowly. They started running up…

Trying and failing to keep her thought processes moving: "I said, no grabbing me when I'm mad!"

"You also said not to call it 'grabbing'."

What was it with this boy and neck-kissing? A gentleman didn't routinely electrify the daylights out of a poor girl.

"I guess I say a lot of things," she said. "New ground rule?"

"_No_ ground rules?"

"Yes, please." Then: "Yes, _please._"

-Lyle-

_I think I'm in trouble. _

* * *

Thanks as always for reading! Updates are coming at a crawl. It's a combination of professors throwing a veritable Elite Four of projects at me, my writing class being a pain, and NaNo coming up.

Yeah, by the way. It looks like there'll be another Pokemon fic which I'll be writing concurrent to 'Winnifred & Lyle' this November! Stay tuned!

You guys are bosses. Review if you like, and I'll see you all next chapter.


	11. Homecoming II

Winnifred & Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

Homecoming – Part 2

-Winnifred-

Mirelle skipped through the O'Malley Pavilion. _Skipped_. Her ever-present satchel of art supplies bounced at her hip, the pencils splashing against her paint-stained cargo jeans. Yet even prancing through a public place in the middle of the day, on an overcast Friday, with the previous night's charcoal on her face and her hair pulled into a loose braid, Mirelle attracted attention. She had to keep turning her head and nodding at the guys who smiled for her.

Winnifred couldn't pull off the just-woke-up look quite as well. "How come I go outside dressed like I don't care, and I'm a leper, but when you do it…"

"You're not a leper!" Mirelle said, turning to skip down the tile floor backwards. "I think it might be the bed smell, though. When's the last time you washed that shirt?" Then: "Or the last time you washed your sheets?"

"My sheets wash themselves. It's the future technology of Not Particularly Caring."

Mirelle flapped her hand open and closed as Winnifred spoke. Then: "What's our budget, again?"

"Not bank-breaking."

Mirelle landed firm. "I'm trying to help, you know. If I'm supposed to offer my feminine knowledge, then you need to give me something, here."

"I said, I'd wash all the dishes in the sink…"

"Those are _your_ dishes."

And because stupid Mirelle had lived with her for long enough to know: "Take the Great Wall of Winnifred down for a moment, will you? It's buying a dress, not a root canal."

Winnifred tugged at the hem of her shirt, where it hung midway down her thighs and frayed. "Thanks. For coming, I mean. Thank you."

Mirelle shrugged. "Just paying it forward. If I ever have boy problems, I'd appreciate someone coming to my rescue, too."

Cue a knowing "Hmm."

"What's 'hmm'?"

"You didn't refute it. I knew it! Winni has a boyfriend."

"Don't call me that…" She grumbled, squeezing her hand instinctively. The right backpack strap wasn't there. She'd left it at home, because something felt wrong about bringing her Trainer gear to a girly day. Mirelle's words, not hers.

"You forgot to say that Lyle's not your boyfriend," Mirelle added after they had resumed walking. They turned a corner, past the Hot Topic and the Disney Store, and came around to the front of some fancy boutique place. The kind with mannequins in the windows, brandishing $3000 trench coats and $400 beanie hats. "That's how the dialogue goes, right? I make fun of you for looking all dragged-out-of-the-tomb, then I bring up Lyle, and you say he's not your boyfriend—direct quote—and then you get all blushy and—"

"Stop watching cartoons."

"I'm an art student. It's my job to watch cartoons. Now, then!" Mirelle raised her arms to the sky in a moaning stretch. She slammed them back at her sides. "What kind of look are we going for?"

Winnifred watched the entrance.

"Before we go in," Mirelle clarified, "We need to have a battle plan. Aspartia Town Homecoming…it's totally posh, right?"

"You did _not_ just say 'totally posh.'"

Not listening: "Maybe something backless…nah, we're not trying to scare the boy. What's Lyle wearing?"

"I dunno." Winnifred had explained on the train how it wasn't technically a date, but immediately ran into the roadblock of explaining only the broad strokes. She was going with a group of…acquaintances. Who also know Lyle. And they got tickets, but because they have friends of friends with good parents.

And wasn't she paired up with Nate for the evening, anyway?

Yeah. Seems legit.

Mirelle scrunched her face, the way she did before tackling an art piece. "If we had more time, I'd say try and coordinate something, but if we're stuck with the here and now…We've got no choice but to go all out."

Winnifred gulped.

…

-Lyle-

Room14 (Message sent at 11:28pm): I hate the tux I packed.

Room14 (Message sent at 11:30pm): I feel like I'm gonna rip the thing by moving.

FrontDeskSupport: Hi, and sorry for the delay! This is Willa at the Embassie Hotel Desk. How may I help you?

FrontDeskSupport: Um…Was this for the day shift girl? Winnifred?

FrontDeskSupport: You're that guy she's always with, right?

FrontDeskSupport: Hello?

FrontDeskSupport: Hello?

Room14: I was wondering if I could have some more towels.

FrontDeskSupport: Definitely! I'll have the maid service come by in the morning.

Room14 has signed off.

Lyle stared at the pile of fresh towels still up on the bathroom rack.

_God. _

…

-Winnifred-

She didn't sleep the night before the homecoming. It wasn't entirely the gaudy event's fault.

Winnifred's dress was just expensive enough to have a layaway option. Thanks to a combination of being under thirty and seeming appropriately pathetic, there was a minimum of judgment when Winnifred had to request that she pay the _obscene_ price tag over the next month. Meaning, she'd have to step up the Ranger Net missions to have the remaining $1400 to pay back Uncle Howard. Inside of…two weeks?

She hung the dress in its black bag on the hanger behind the door. So naturally, after Winnifred shut the lights off and lay in bed, it stared at her, watching her sleep like an overpriced stalker. Because she needed more stalkers.

At least Winnifred got one small victory: she cancelled the alarm a minute before it was set to blare. Take _that_, technology.

…Then she remembered she was working the afternoon-night shift, so she could go from the desk straight to Homecoming. Winnifred fell back into her pillows and growled.

Across the hall, Mirelle had already gotten to work. Joy Division seeped in through Winnifred's bedroom walls. She kicked off the covers and finally retired her white nightshirt to the hamper, only to swap it for one just like it. She ran a few fingers through her hair, then went into the hallway.

Mirelle's stereo was blasting 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', but Mirelle herself was nowhere to be seen. "Roomie? Where'd you go?"

"In here!" Mirelle called from the main room. Winnifred followed the voice, her feet puffy and her thighs awkwardly bumping into one another. Mirelle, her pink hair back into a bun and her painter's clothes covered in flour, stood in the kitchenette with a mixing bowl in hand.

"You look like a character on a syrup bottle," Winnifred said, scratching her stomach.

"I made pancakes! It's a big day, and you need to start off with big energy."

"What soap bottle did you read that off of?"

Mirelle frowned. "Your plate's in the oven. Even if _you_ don't think going with a boy to Aspartia Town Homecoming is a thing to be excited about…"

As her roommate trailed off, Winnifred realized: she had never told Mirelle about the Michael stuff. That entire short phase of her life, which was directly influencing this longer chunk, had been kept completely under wraps.

She remembered how good it felt to be honest with Lyle. In more ways than one.

"This isn't my first rodeo," Winnifred said, opening a drawer and reaching for a fork.

"Come again?"

"I've been to Homecomings before." Then: "The guy himself was a dick. But I've been. They're not much." Waving the fork around: "You get introduced to his co-workers, a couple geezers try to hit on you and then act like they were playing when they see you're attached, which kind of says something about respect and sexuality in Aspartia Town's upper crust, and _then _you get stuck eating little finger sandwiches because you barely squeezed your fat ass into the dress he bought you.

"Mirelle, you've been stirring that bowl since I walked in here." And when her roommate didn't react, Winnifred inched forward and closed her hanging jaw by hand.

A knock at the door. Once, twice.

Mirelle snapped back. "Can you get that?" She poured another cup of batter onto her skillet.

Winnifred took a panake from the plate on the stove. It was still hot. She folded it, dipped it in syrup and crossed to the living room area. "Who is it, your parents?"

"I dunno."

"Please, don't tell me they're making a big deal out of this, too—Holy _shit._"

Standing in the doorway: fifteen years old with the gangly height and firm chin of a man ten years older, in a button-down shirt and slacks, with shoes expensive enough to pay the rent and a haircut to cover a car note. Pricey-looking rolling suitcase in one hand, duffel bag in the other. He pushed the thick-rimmed glasses up his nose.

"Dawson?"

Mirelle squeaked.

"Nice to see you too, big sister." Dawson pushed his way into the apartment, almost barreling Winnifred over with his suitcase. "This town reeks of smog and congestion. Tell me you have central cooling or air filtering or _something_."

"No," Winnifred shook her head, slowly. "What are you doing—"

"Mom said you lived in more rustic conditions than we're used to, but really, come on. What kind of sofa is this? There are plates everywhere, someone's _bedding_, it's probably filthy…"

"That's Mirelle's," Winnifred said. "She lives here." She gestured to the kitchenette, where Mirelle stood still as stone.

Dawson craned his head. He stood in the middle of the floor, waving his hands around like some divine figure. The same curls that Winnifred fought on a daily basis rested on his head without a strand out of place. "Ah, right! The bohemian artiste." Then, back to Winnifred: "She pays rent, right?"

"Her parents own the building."

Dawson's bushy eyebrows shot up. He curled his mouth downward. "How quaint."

Winnifred slammed the door and folded her arms. "So, little brother, before I throw you out on your ass for setting the new faux pas record—"

"Still solving things with your fists, I see."

"—What are you doing on my doorstep?"

"I'm in town for the weekend," Dawson said. Lowering his head and shifting his eyes condescendingly: "I thought Mom called. She said it was days ago."

Winnifred opened her gob to argue, and then it flooded back. That call had most definitely happened. It waved in and out of existence for the last three days. She even told Lyle about it, that afternoon when they first…

She stuffed the rest of the pancake in her mouth and snapped it shut.

"So," Dawson clapped his hands. The fakest smile this side of reality spread on his smug face. "Let's be real. The only reason I'm not at our uncle's hotel is because that place serves the lowest common denominator. Any place that lets renters live there for weeks at a time is absurd.

"That said, you clearly didn't plan for me, so we'll have to make do. Hm." Dawson folded his arms. "I'll probably catch the plague somewhere in here. You, artiste!" Dawson pointed a finger to Mirelle, who jumped an inch in the air and splattered batter on the floor and was currently burning a flapjack on the skillet. "If you're sleeping out here, I suppose it's only right that I sleep in the bedroom you commandeered for work."

"H-how did you know I—"

"I know your type," Dawson said. He pushed his luggage against the wall and raised his arms. Winnifred's skin crawled at the familiar gesture. "Where do we begin?"

"How about no," Winnifred intervened. "You'll sleep out here. I'll get it cleaned up, and Mirelle will just room with me."

Mirelle: "Your room is worse than out here…"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Winnifred said. Jabbing a finger at Dawson: "You go downstairs and get a coffee or something. Say you're my brother, they'll throw food at you."

"I don't need food thrown at me. I have a job. Speaking of which, my duffel has your rent money in it."

Almost like fortune: Dawson's stomach grumbled.

"Right. My Zagat Guide did say the bistro around here was a cut above its décor. Provided cabs service this area." Then, with outrageous Lambert-family audacity, he flashed his billion-dollar grin and gave one of those air-waves to Mirelle. "Nice to meet you." To Winnifred: "Put some pants on." And he was out the door.

The smoke alarm blared in the kitchenette. Mirelle turned off the skillet's burner and jumped toward the ceiling, swatting away at the smoke.

Awkward seconds ticked by.

"I'm telling my parents he's not allowed at their café," Mirelle said at last. "I know he's your brother, but Ma and Pops say that you pick your family, and I chose you and I love you, but you're not a package deal. How am I supposed to move into your room? Your bed takes up half of it anyway."

The beeping stopped. Mirelle set the bowl with the pancake batter on the cluttered countertop, then pulled a dishtowel from her apron and dropped it to the floor. She moved it with her foot to mop up the spill.

"Then there's the whole 'two girls and a guy' apartment issue. In all the dramas, the guy is some studmuffin—yes, I did just say that—and he ends up causing romantic hijinks but ultimately adds a new flavor to the main cast. Your brother is a dick."

"Yep."

Mirelle stopped. She looked up. Winnifred hadn't budged an inch.

"Winnifred—"

"He's a dick. But I knew he was coming, and it was on my to get things ready. He has every right to be cross with me."

"Cross-counter: nobody gets to act so entitled to people doing favors."

That got Winnifred's attention. She turned to face her roommate, still bunching the edge of her nightshirt in her fist. Eyes wide. Hell, Winnifred realized her big toes were _touching_. Contrast to Mirelle, who leaned on the countertop, had her jaw dropped in the best 'can you _believe _this?' expression known to man, and who even gave an empty laugh. When did they trade personalities?

"You don't owe him anything, Winnifred. I shouldn't have to tell you that."

"I do, though."

"Really." She folded her arms. "Maybe I'm the _bohemian_, and maybe my parents own a _quaint _building, but I have some self-respect." Mirelle took the plate of pancakes from the stove and went back to her room. The door slammed, Joy Division turned up.

Winnifred shuddered.

She literally _shuddered_.

In the span of two minutes, her brother had walked in, thrown Lambert Family bile on everything she owned, including one of the only friendships she'd ever had, and then left just as simply.

This wasn't even the first time. Winnifred always remembered beating up Dawson in the back of the car, but there were other times. When Winnifred turned fourteen, old enough to sign a permission slip in Unova, Dawson faxed one over and demanded she sign it. The penalty was telling Mom and Dad that Mistralton Prep made a point of taking in violent kids, which would make their family name look like trash. It was a lie, but Winnifred was a week away from getting her comeuppance with Hayley Long. She signed the damn form, in the end. Then, when Dad found out the truth, it was _Winnifred_ whose allowance got cut for the rest of the year. Dawson was a victim of having a lousy role model sister. And now he was a lawyer. Such is life.

He even brought the rent money Winnifred didn't need.

Though if she took it, she'd be back in the black from paying for her Homecoming dress…

Winnifred sank to the floor. It didn't matter what reason she used the money for, her parents would think it was for the rent. Meaning whatever Dawson said about her would be instantly _right_, because Winnifred said she could make her own way, and it would have been a lie.

…But wasn't she set to get fired anyway, what with the stolen paintings?

"Damnit."

It all came back to that License Exam, didn't it?

If Winnifred had passed, she would be halfway through with the Unova League by now, following out his life the same way Dawson was. But _no_, Dawson never felt the good ole' family love. He had no pressure to finish his studies and graduated easily. _He_ didn't have a marriage resting on his shoulders, and _he_ didn't have an entire school rooting against him.

That was all Winnifred's fault. Dawson manipulated. Winnifred hit.

And Dawson won, time and again.

"_Damnit._"

Dawson had been here maybe five minutes. And he said maybe four sentences. He really only needed one.

Still solving things with your fists, I see.

"Damnit, damnit, _damnit!_"

She needed to eat something. Winnifred's tummy barked. She went to the kitchenette and pulled the plate from the oven.

Casually, she removed the flapjacks from the plate and rested them on a paper towel. Then she felt the weight of the plate, felt the electricity in her arms—

First the smash against the wall, then the music stopping, and finally Mirelle bolting out of her space, paintbrush in hand. She said something. Winnifred didn't hear.

She was too busy running to the luggage. She kicked it once. Not enough. She kicked it again, then again. The duffel tore at the side. Expensive stitching. Mom would make her pay for it. Just adding fuel to the fire: Winnifred raised her foot and brought it down like she were killing a roach, which she very technically was. Mirelle reached to pull her away, but Winnifred pushed her friend back and they both fell over, Mirelle over the sofa and Winnifred onto the floor, so she scrambled and tore the bag apart from the inside out. The suitcase fell over, and so Winnifred turned on it, her fists saying something to the plastic container and when the latches popped open and her knuckles were red and split, she saw the meticulous clothes, and just atop it, the envelope with her name scrawled across.

Dawson had put the money in the wrong bag.

She fell on her ass. The adrenaline washed out. The feeling came to her fingers, followed quickly by the pain. She'd need bandages.

The duffel lay in pieces along their wood floor. Clothing had been ripped, as well. Did Winnifred even remember seeing it?

And then, towering over her, Mirelle.

Her eyes narrow. Lips taut.

"Please," Winnifred said. Just low enough that she could hear, but Mirelle heard anyway. She also heard the first sob before the torrent. Tears came in waves, enough that Winnifred had no idea eyes could _make_ that many tears, and her red cheeks went pale and cold. She sat there, bawling like an infant, for what was an eternity.

Mirelle waited. Finally Winnifred could speak.

"Please, don't look at me like that."

She couldn't explain it. She never would explain how it hurt to see that same look on everyone she'd ever known for more than a minute. How, if she ever just let herself rip, she scared and pushed away and just _disappointed_ people.

Wrong. She had told Lyle who she was. He didn't look at her this way.

But sooner or later, Winnifred would give him a reason to.

Sweet Arceus, if the judgment stare ever fell over that sweet, beautiful boy's face, Winnifred would die.

Mirelle sat beside her. Meaning Mirelle wasn't disowning her. Then she put a hand on Winnifred's quivering shoulder and cracked a tiny smile. And the way she was holding the red paintbrush, streaks of crimson swiped across Winnifred's shirt.

"I think I have an idea for how to fix the bags," Mirelle said.

…

-Lyle-

She was running late. Something had gone wrong.

Lyle had taken the train from the Aspartia Town Gym with his two favorite people in the whole wide world (_gag_). The mission briefing went something like this:

Cossette: Eat a lava cookie if you get too banged up, don't break anything, and fight Michael if you can. But if you come up against Noel, _run_.

Nate and Lyle: Why?

Wes: Because she said so.

That killed the topic until they left the base doors and came up to city level. Lyle had come to the Gym already in his tux—the one that didn't fit him quite right, meaning he either lost muscle or gained some, probably a little of both—with his attack Styler nub primed. Nate surprised nobody when his outfit ended up being straight white.

Dawn had glared as they waited for the train. "What?"

"We're supposed to be _undercover_."

"Yeah, but that didn't stop you from getting all dolled up."

"It's different for women," Dawn said, her piles of hair drills coiling up and down along her exposed back. The green dress was some material that glistened when she turned, and then there was the cleavage issue. "I asked Winnifred earlier. Guys at these socialite functions are basically arm candy. If you don't dress to impress, nobody notices. If _I_ didn't, I wouldn't even get in the building."

The train came up on the horizon then.

"I'm guessing there's some great social justice inequality thing at work in your head. Class and gender issues and whatnot," Nate offered.

"There are. Some of us have bigger worldviews than just 'fight evil', you know." And then the Dawn smile flashed. She wasn't being condescending, she was being honest. And Lyle had been around people long enough to know, if someone's being mean and says they're being honest, they're just being mean. Dawn was a sweetheart with a head on her shoulders.

Dawn would probably have something to say about consent issues with kissing an angry person.

Lyle had tried to bring that up to Winnifred. She had, quote, 'stopped him right the hell there'.

"What are you laughing at?" Nate asked. Lyle said it was nothing.

The train ride was a few minutes longer than it should have been. Packed trains, thanks to traffic slowdown, which was courtesy of limousines gridlocking everything. The three of them bunched together, weathering the current of bodies as the train rushed along.

They arrived at Hilbert Towers, but a certain Winnifred was nowhere to be seen. Nate and Dawn stood off to the side, watching the front glass doors and the bulky security guys take invitations as guests arrived. Just as Dawn had predicted: upper-crust socialites, most of them at least twice as old as they were, with men in plain suits and women with dresses and hairstyles that were ripped from history books and glamour magazines.

"I think I get your point," Nate said as an older couple walked past. "I think that woman sold her house to get her hair that color."

Lyle saw Winnifred where only he would have known to look: right in the middle of the train station, in the same spot they were days before, legs stiff.

If there were an iconic Winnifred Lambert image to have burned into his retinas, this was it.

"Red's definitely her color," Nate remarked.

Her dress narrowed toward the middle, playing up the curves Lyle was starting to know rather well. From there it flowed out, a crimson waterfall of fabric that met in a perfect rim around her ankles. No sleeves, but a simple red cardigan added to the mix to cover her shoulders. She had done nothing with her hair, maybe just some more conditioner to make it bouncier than normal. A small black clutch hung around the right wrist.

As Lyle went toward her, he even spotted a certain black hair tie at her left wrist. The devil in the details.

She was staring at her feet as Lyle came up. She didn't see him until, at point-blank range, Lyle poked her in the stomach.

"Hey!" He said. "You're late. Is everything okay?"

And fast: "_Yes, _Lyle. Everything is fine. I got held up." She started toward Nate and Dawn, but Lyle did not follow.

"Winnifred, your hand—"

She took her bandaged left hand, balled it slowly, and held it in the right. "I said I'm _fine_." She pushed forward and found the Covenant members waiting at the sidewalk.

"So! I'm here now, that's the important bit," Winnifred told Nate and Dawn. "Are we ready?"

"Not yet," Dawn said. She kept her voice down, constantly eyeing the limos as the pulled up and as other couples exited. She reached into her own purse and removed the four tickets. "Nate and Winnifred," she said as she passed the tickets. "Then these two are myself and Lyle."

"What, no aliases?"

"You don't need one, you work with Michael's HR," Dawn told Nate.

"Well, yeah. But aliases make things more exciting."

Lyle stared into Hilbert Towers. He saw the statue of the man himself, holding his baseball cap down with that knowing smirk. Socialites had already begun filling the several balconies, and the longer they waited, the harder it would be to work up the nerve. Wes was already somewhere inside the complex, as was Michael. Tonight was make it or break it. He felt sweat on his palms.

"Let's get this over with," Winnifred said. She started for the modest red carpet leading to the entrance. Nate almost didn't see her go, too busy watching the red gown flow in her wake.

Dawn was a little more perceptive. She went to Lyle's side and looped her arm around his. _Heart, stop fluttering_. _Not now._ She glanced up at him. "Is something the matter with you two?"

"I have no idea," Lyle said.

* * *

Thanks for reading, as always! You guys are the best. Review if you like, and come back soon! Like I said, updates are winding to a crawl, but I've put too much into these people to quit now.


	12. Homecoming III

Winnifred & Lyle's Everyday Miracle

…

Homecoming – Part 3

-Lyle-

The first and only time Lyle Forrester attended a dress-up, suit-and-tie event flashed across his memory. He tried scrubbing it clean a year ago, with a combination of brain bleach and overeating. Turns out brain bleach is just a saying, and pumping bad Kalosian food into a lean Ranger'ing machine just gives you the runs.

He dragged his feet as they entered the Tower lobby. Dawn essentially led the way, gripping his arm in the nook of her elbow and applying pressure. She smiled at passer-by with that faint, barely-trying, I-don't-want-to-get-wrinkles grin associated with the upper crust. Lyle caught himself staring at her green dress and deep curls, and his head rocketed back up. Cue eye-contact with a hunched-over geezer _at least_ three times his age.

Said geezer shot a glance at Dawn, winked at Lyle, and kept on trucking.

"Can we go home?" Lyle asked, his voice a whisper against the chatter.

"I've done this before, don't worry," Dawn said, her lips barely moving. "Like I said, nobody is looking at you."

"That's a relief," Lyle thought, kicking himself at the irony. He was missing his room and its curtains right about now.

The lobby had been transformed to an extent that Dawn and Winnifred may well have just painted their nails. The chandelier had been joined by his six friends, each one hanging over different sections of the room. Catering had been set up along the far wall, close to the tables with their placards and expensive silver. The middle of the room, with Hilbert's statue in the middle, had been reserved for a dance floor. Obnoxious classical music droned at a low volume, underlying the evening. To top it off, the lighting had been dimmed to a subtle glow.

Dawn stopped, and Lyle stumbled to follow.

"Ask me to dance," Dawn hushed.

Lyle babbled.

"Out loud, and like you mean it." She took a step back, then held out her left hand to him. It dangled in the air, as though a string were holding her arm up by the wrist.

Lyle took it carefully, feeling the callouses on his fingertips. "M-may I have this dance?"

Dawn's fingers closed around his. She led them to the dance floor, careful to make sure Lyle was only just behind her. When they were at the edge of the dance floor, joined at their sides by two older couples towering over them, Dawn closed the distance between them with a graceful step. She put her hands around Lyle's neck; his hands flew to her hips.

Dawn's breath caught, and before she could correct him—

"A little higher up, you two!" said one of the older women dancing with her husband. "Save that for the hotel," and then a knowing grin.

Lyle raised his hands to Dawn's lower back. "Sorry," he whispered.

"No, it's fine," Dawn said. "Appearances are what make these things work."

"These things? You mean heinous espionage?"

Lyle didn't think Covenant girls giggled like regular ones, but hey, they do.

"No wonder Winnifred likes you," Dawn said, her tone a cross between blurting and hustling. "You both joke when you're anxious."

"I'm not anxious," Lyle said. Then, looking up: "Where did they go, anyway?"

"I'm on it. I'm going to put my hand on your shoulder, and you're going to kiss my wrist."

"Wait, what?"

"On three. Two—"

"What happened to three?"

Protesting did nothing. Dawn's hand dropped off of Lyle's neck and slowly caressed his collarbone, then rested limp at his shoulder. The other couple was still watching them, but they were also still smiling like idiots. Just entertain the nostalgic old couple, Lyle. All part of the show. He took Dawn's wrist and pressed his lips to her wrist. She smelled like raspberries.

With his head turned this way, Lyle saw across the floor and over by the tables. Winnifred and Nate stood with glasses of champagne, chatting with one another. Nate was putting on the same show Dawn was back here, with his wide gestures and his admittedly-dashing looks drawing attention from the veritable old folks' home around him.

Winnifred was having none of it. Hand at her purse, another holding the glass daintily, but her lips pulled to the side. Not bothering to make eye contact with her date.

Her date.

Ugh. The thought made Lyle cringe.

At which point he pulled his mouth from Dawn's hand.

"Winnifred's not going to blow the whole operation, is she?" Lyle asked. He pulled Dawn closer and whispered in her ear. Not a hair touched him; each and every strand of navy hair was wrapped into another, perfectly. "She's a walking target in here. God, she even wore red."

When Dawn didn't reply: "What? Is something—"

"N-no," Dawn said. Her breath wasn't coming. "I'm fine, Lyle, it's fine."

She pulled Lyle's hands away and started toward the far wall. The receptionist area had been repurposed as a bar. "Did you want anything?"

Lyle shook his head, but bit his tongue about drinking on the job. Dawn made the comment for him: "It's going to be a long night, is all." Then a bashful shrug. A child knowing it was misbehaving, and doing it anyway, to get it out of its system. She waved to the couple before leaving the dance floor. Lyle followed, unsure.

She slowed enough to put her head by his shoulder and whisper: "Coming down the escalator. Ten o'clock."

Lyle craned his head, making sure to pull his shoulder at the same time to feign a stretch. Two young people came down the grand escalator, both in requisite fancy garb. The man was old enough to be Lyle's superior, but definitely not old enough to be a parent or even a Captain back at HQ. Brown hair flying upward toward the back of his head, and flying in all directions toward the front. Sunglasses hung at his collar. Beside him, a young woman who came up to his collar, in a teal dress that glistened like moving water. It was just a shade darker than her polar-white hair, straightened and hanging like a curtain. A few years younger than the man, but more confident. The man had business on his mind.

As though something were riding on the night's events.

It clicked.

"Uh-oh."

-Winnifred-

Nate could gab for hours. First it was about how he grew up in Numeva Town, where his family owned a summer condo, and how he had a brief romance with the girl next door. Then it was all about the time he ran away from boarding school in Sinnoh because the school didn't allow Pokemon, and his Tympole had smuggled itself in the suitcase. When fancy-looking people were looking, Nate boasted about getting shares from his father's company merged into the same offshore account as the one that he manages his HR paycheck in.

Winnifred almost gagged before she realized it was all BS.

"You're good at that," she said.

"I do try." Nate set the empty champagne glass down and reached for a water from a nearby table. "It's all about giving people what they want."

"Isn't that life?"

Nate gagged. It shocked Winnifred into standing up straight.

"No," Nate said, breaking character to be stern as hell. "Life is _not_ about making other people happy, Winnifred, and don't think for a minute that it is."

She whistled. "Wow. I think I hit a nerve."

"I think you're in a mood, and you need to get over it."

Winnifred raised an eyebrow.

"That was rude," Nate admitted. "I'll ask about it once we're done here."

The hell he would. "No, thanks. It's not even that big of a deal."

"Now I _have_ to know about it. There's intrigue." The corner of his mouth curled.

"Nate, really. It's nothing."

Nate's eyes rolled back into his head. He ran a hand into his tumbleweed hair. "Fine, be brooding and mysterious. I swear, ninety percent of all misunderstandings come from angst-ridden kids trying to be brooding and mysterious—"

A tap on his shoulder, and Nate turned. Winnifred's eyes glazed. Her palms went clammy, loosening the grip at her purse and making the glass in her hand wobble. Sweat broke out at her neckline at the same time her voice box jumped out and ran for planet Mars.

"Excuse me," Michael said. "I've been meaning to speak with you this evening."

Winnifred's jaw clenched. Fight-or-flight adrenaline coursed through her veins, and this time, there was no Lyle to rush her out of the building. She hid her hands behind her waist, keeping the telltale hair ties out of sight.

"Nate Armstrong, was it?" Michael extended his hand. Nate shook it, seemingly flexing every muscle in his grip. "Head of my HR division, if I'm not mistaken."

"Sir—"

"Call me Michael, please. 'Sir' is what these cronies call me at board meetings."

Nate nodded. "I trust you're having a pleasant evening, Michael."

"It's not all bad. The bartender forgot to buy the import beer. _Someone_ keeps vetoing my alcohol decisions."

The girl behind Michael stepped forward. Winnifred hadn't even noticed the thin young woman with long finger, long legs, long hair…hell, long _everything_, right down to the eyelashes. The woman batted her icy white hair aside and fluttered her eyes.

"Noel," she said. "Charmed to meet you. It's refreshing to see a face under forty at one of these things."

"Likewise," Nate said, making sure to take Noel's hand and kiss it when she offered. Winnifred knew what was coming. Stupid socialites, acting like this is the middle ages or something.

Hell, Nate even knew this was a bad idea. He stood aside to present Winnifred, and the second of worry in his eyes showed: how did he approach this? What was the play?

Nate winked at her. Translation: keep your gob shut. That would be easy.

"This lovely young woman is Winnifred," Nate said, resting his hand on the small of her back. "I stayed in her hotel for the first few days in town before getting settled in. She's quite the sweetheart."

"I'm sweet as hell," she added. _Oh, god. _

Noel reacted first. Of course she would: didn't new girlfriends have a derivative to murder the ex programmed into them, or something? The cold woman ran her off hand along its upper arm and pulled her lips taut. Winnifred knew that smile: it was the this-should-be-interesting expression of the gentile. Seeing it on her mother was one thing; on a stranger? Winnifred's blood boiled.

"Winnifred Lambert!" Michael beamed. "Darling! It's wonderful to see you again! How have you been?" He pulled her close with those lanky-like-crow's-legs arms and kissed her flushing cheek. "You look well. I trust the hotel business is still smooth sailing."

"You two know each other?" Nate asked, waving his finger between the two. Stupid Nate.

"Do we ever," Michael said. "Winnifred is a good friend of mine. Like yourself, I had only just come to Aspartia Town when I met our Miss Lambert. She's quite the enchanting firecracker, isn't she?"

Then, wrapping a hand around Noel's stick-thin waist: "Now, then. It's been more than ten seconds at this thing and I'm still sober. Something is amiss. Care to join us at the bar, Nate? Winnifred?"

"We're fine," Nate said, his words curt but his expression kind. "Enjoy the evening, Michael."

"Will do. A pleasure to see you again, Winnifred." They entered into the mass of bodies in the dance floor, Michael's spikes and Noel's white hair highlighting their trail.

Winnifred put her glass down and clutched her stomach. "Oh, god," she started. "He knows. Just being here, I wrecked the entire thing, he knows, he _knows—_"

"He doesn't know a thing. It's fine, it's—"

Michael stopped in his tracks. He glanced down at his wrist—maybe a watch?—and nodded to Noel, who became still as a porcelain statue. Michael raised a hand and snapped. It was impossible to hear, of course, not over the incessant clucking of the guests and the lame ambient music. Michael left the lobby dance floor, with Noel at his side, and moved back toward the escalator.

"Look at that," Nate awed. "He brought his flock of goons." True story: a five-man gaggle of tuxedo-clad security men waited for them. They led Michael and Noel through a back door under the escalator.

"He knows," Winnifred repeated.

"Nope. This is part of the plan."

"Michael called in the goon patrol—"

"Because Wes is going to work. Same for us. Let's move." Nate pushed Winnifred gently toward the same escalator. The door was a deeper black than the rest of the wall; Nate knocked it gently with his knuckles and it slid open, revealing a brightly-lit beige hallway. The tile floors gleamed under the glow.

"Ladies first," Nate said, extending his hand out. Winnifred entered, feeling the air conditioning of the lobby disappear. The hallway was stuffy, anxious. Daring her to enter. She did so anyway, and the door shut behind them.

The façade dropped instantly. Nate untucked his shirt and undid the tie, then ran hands through his mane and let the hair fly. "God, I hate these things," he said. "Sorry about the jibba-jabba. And what the hell was with Noel? She's like a siren or something."

They took off, Nate leading the hustle, toward an intersection in the halls up ahead. Winnifred picked up the edges of her dress to lift her knees and keep up. "Where does this lead?"

"We take a right turn up ahead. We meet Dawn and Lyle at the helicopter deck, that's where the handoff is—"

An arm reached for Nate at the turn! Burly, muscular and attached to a man built like a Tauros, his eyes hidden behind jet-black sunglasses. The man's other hand reached for the piece at his ear—

"Don't think so," Nate said calmly. He took the man's hand and twisted it at the wrist. Winnifred had seen the move done slowly, but at the speed Nate was moving, the wrist _snapped_. The man screamed bloody murder as he went down, just low enough for Nate to take him into a headlock. The security guard went down for the count.

"Your jaw fell open," Nate said as he caught his breath.

"You _hurt_ him—"

"He'll wake up. And Michael gives great health insurance." Wiping a bead of sweat from his brow: "We're late. Come on."

They started again, and Winnifred tried to remember the order of the turns through the tower labyrinth. Left turn at the next intersection, then a right turn two intersections past, a moment to pause and briefly panic that you got lost, then keep going straight. It wasn't even a maze anymore, Winnifred thought, because at least a maze had different twists and turns. This was a literal purgatory: nothing existed to keep the intruder on track. Which was probably the point.

"Almost there," Nate said.

"You're sure? Because all I'm seeing is—"

"Cossette says this was modeled after a prototype for Orre's Victory Road, if it were ever to get inducted into the League." Nate shook his head. "Terrifying thought, right?" Then, pointing: "We're just up that way. Right turn at the fork."

He took off at a jog. God, did Covenants have to pass a physical fitness test or something?

Winnifred ambled to the fork and made the turn. Finally, something looked different: the hallway ended at a black cliff. The hall jutted out just enough to become a balcony looking out into a black metal space. She started forward—

"Winnifred! _Duck!_"

She didn't just duck, she hit the deck. In the nick of time: two more full-grown bodies flew into the wall where she had been standing. Winnifred rolled out of the way, catching her flats in her dress and hearing an aggravating rip, and the bodies collapsed atop one another like ragdolls. Winnifred crawled up to sit and lean against the opposite wall, her nails digging into her purse. A hand entered her vision.

"Sorry about that," Dawn said. "I've been told I have trouble toning the necessary violence down."

Winnifred took the leverage and got to her feet. Lyle followed up behind Dawn, scanning their own path for other followers. Like Nate, Lyle had taken off his suit jacket and untucked the shirt. He even took it another step forward and unbuttoned the shirt, revealing a thin black v-neck.

"You look like a biker," Winnifred said, not entirely as a joke. Nobody laughed.

"This way," Dawn announced, leading them to the balcony. "Watch your step. This is one-way glass but it's very thin. One push can shatter the thing."

Nate and Dawn walked onto the platform without hesitation. Lyle waited for Winnifred first, still turning around constantly and watching for more armed men.

He was almost unrecognizable.

His sleeve had been pulled up and at the wrist was that black band, from the day he came back to her apartment. Lyle's glasses hung high on his face, pushed almost right to his eyelashes, and the bottoms of the lenses had fogged. Behind them, his kind eyes squinted, surveying with the sensitivity of a machine. The chest muscles Winnifred remembered pressing against, the arms she let herself get lost in, all of it channeled into a Pokemon Ranger in action.

"Clear," Lyle announced. He turned back to Winnifred but did not acknowledge her, brushing past to find Dawn and Nate at the balcony.

But really, what had she expected?

_Boy problems_.

"There's nothing in your plan about hearing them?" Lyle asked. His knees bounced with adrenaline, his voice lower. It was strange.

"Wes is killing time," Nate said. "Michael need to start something. Once he's goaded, we can move in."

"Why—"

"Cossette looked into Ranger international protocol. You can't be with us," Dawn said, chiming in with that airy monotone. "If it looks like you jumped in because a fight started, instead of because you were plotting with known fugitives—"

-Lyle-

Except that Ranger HQ already knew.

He told his supervisor about working with the Covenant. The first thing she did was ask for their whereabouts.

Meanwhile, these people were trying to keep him from a federal prison.

Lyle felt his stomach sink. Not enough to keep him from moving. But enough.

-Winnifred-

She went to the wall-length window quietly, sliding her feet in slow steps. The glass could break, and even if the others weren't particularly worried, Winnifred didn't enjoy the prospect of falling to her death.

The view justified the fear. They were at least five floors above the Hilbert Towers hangar. They were no longer underneath the lobby, or even the tower itself, if the helicopter off to the far edge of the hangar was any indication. Winnifred found the lone entrance, where the same dull lights from the Homecoming proper beamed outward. Bunched up together were men in suits, but these were not the same caliber as the ones Dawn and Nate threw like playthings. She saw more beards and bald heads than she did upright postures, each one with a briefcase and forehead wrinkles. Except for one in the back, one surrounded by other old men, as if trying to sap his youth.

"Businessmen?"

"Advisors and lawyers," Nate told her. "Michael invested too much of his fortune too fast, so he got paranoid. The guy has an army of people working his funds."

"And he wants them all here to see his triumph," Dawn added with the first hint of disdain in her tone.

Winnifred watched the scene again. The advisors gave the two figures by the helicopter a wide berth.

She recognized him from the classrooms of Mistralton Prep. He had been a figure that followed her around, in posters on her dormitory floor and in lectures on Pokemon Trainer history.

Blue longcoat, combat boots, sandy brown hair held by metal plate sunglasses: Wes.

And across from him, Winnifred's ex. To the people on this balcony he was attempting to become a terrorist of some sort, and to the advisors he was an upper-crust paycheck.

To literally anyone else on the planet, Michael the Metal Arm was a force to reckon with.

To Winnifred Lambert, a sixteen-year-old family embarrassment and illegal, unlicensed Pokemon Trainer, with ten overweight pounds and a penchant for getting hotels ruined and Ranger boys kissed, Michael the Metal Arm was just an ex.

It almost made her laugh.

Michael started pacing. Waving his arms like an animal, trying to intimidate and failing.

"Michael knows Wes, right?"

None of them answered. It was common knowledge.

"Then why are they fighting? I don't get it," Winnifred asked honestly.

Lyle's voice surprised her. "Wes doesn't want to fight." He paused, then: "The two of them go back. They saved Orre together, right? Wes is down there right now, going through with his plan to provoke Michael into a fight, but deep down, he wants Michael to hand over XD-01 without a fight."

Wes shook his head, and Michael quit pacing. Then he started yelling.

"Wes won't say anything canned, because Michael does have all of the power," Lyle continued. "So he'll appeal to Michael's memories. The ones they have together, the ones that prove how Michael used to be someone else. But Metal Arm promises that there is no 'someone else', that he's doing what he thinks is right."

Lyle took a step away from the balcony. Still close enough to watch. Distant enough that Nate and Dawn wouldn't catch his palms clenching.

Winnifred caught it.

Down below, Wes took a step back. Just one. Michael's laugh reached them through the glass.

"Wes pushed him too far," Lyle said. "Michael fired back with another truth, but not one that proves any point. He brought up something that hurt. Michael is trying to set Wes off."

"He knows Wes is provoking him?" Dawn asked.

"He knows Wes is right," Lyle said. "And Mike can't have that. His cronies are here, and Mike's got to seem in control. So he's pushing Wes to react, to get him to lose his cool. Even when he knows it won't happen."

Dawn and Nate kept glued to the hangar scene.

Winnifred watched Lyle talk. Where had this come from? A second ago, he was in his element. Now Lyle watched the scene and every word came from someplace Winnifred had never seen in him. He narrated the emotions of a man who had beaten him half to hell and another he'd never met. Ranger or not, nobody could read body language that well.

"It's coming," Lyle said.

Dawn: "What's coming?"

Lyle: "Michael's done shouting. He's addressing his advisors now, because he forgot they were even in the room. Michael had been back in Orre, back arguing with Wes and still unable to resolve their issues. And when Wes asked Michael why he was so unhappy when he's done so well for himself since their parting, Michael shut down. It was humiliating."

Winnifred stepped away from the glass. She did not take a step toward Lyle.

"The only thing left is to fight him," Lyle finished. "I give it ten seconds. Michael will draw first, and Wes will be expecting it."

"Showtime!" Nate snapped his fingers. He jumped back from the glass and shot his arms out. Then he pointed to Dawn, who was cracking her knuckles and rotating her neck. "Ready for this?"

"Always."

Nate jogged to the edge of the balcony, rapping his knuckles along the wall just before the metal and stone turned to glass. "There's an elevator here," he told them. "It leads to the—bingo, got it!—the hangar floor, right behind Wes. I'll get the advisors out. Lyle, you come down after me, right?"

Winnifred: "After?"

A catatonic Lyle: "So it looks like I just stumbled in." Then, with a smile from a million miles away: "For appearances."

Were Nate and Dawn _robots? _Was nobody going to comment on Lyle's ninety-nine-percent-inner-monologue?

Lyle started behind them. Looked so, then.

Nate slammed a fist against the wall. Like with the entrance to the tunnels themselves, the panel in the metal pushed back and slid aside, this time revealing one of those wire elevators used for emergencies. Winnifred supposed this counted as an emergency. Nate pulled the wire gate aside, stuffed himself in, and pressed the one button along the wall. The door began to close, and if not for Nate's panicked face and a "Holy sh—"

A blast of heat, and Lyle pushed her out of the way—

Plumes of orange flame ignited the elevator door as it closed. Gears whirred to life, but the damage was done. Winnifred held her hands to her ears against the pulsating alarm. Red lights flashed along the ceiling. Hands pulled Winnifred to her feet—Lyle—but he was not her concern. Outside at the hangar, the advisors were being escorted out by men in body armor with helmets.

Winnifred watched as Michael pull a Pokeball from his jacket. Wes responded in kind.

Footsteps rushed for the balcony, then away. A voice yelling: "These ones aren't important. The leader is the priority, so get to ground level."

Where had that fire come from? The lights, and the alarm, and the adrenaline and the panic and—

"The plan's compromised," Lyle shouted over the siren. Dawn stood facing the entrance to the balcony. A motionless sentry. Waiting, but what for? "If Wes goes down by the time Nate gets there—"

"You don't have to do that," Dawn projected back.

"The mission calls for it." Then, honesty in his all-business tone: "Thank you. For looking out for me."

"I'll make sure Winnifred gets out safely. If you're going to go, go _now_."

Wait—

"Go? Go where?" Winnifred yelled it at Dawn, then at Lyle, who still had his hands at her arms. "I don't understand, what's going on—"

Lyle whipped his left arm out toward the glass window. A metal disk—his Styler nub—shot out at Mach speed and sliced a hole clear through the pane, then dug another on the return arc back to Lyle's wrist.

Then, clicking in Winnifred's head: "You're not going _down there_?! Wes nearly killed you! And Michael's there fighting him, and Nate's got this under control, and how are we supposed to find the two of you and _why is that alarm so loud _and—"

Strong hands at her hips, right in their groove where it felt so right. Pulling her, not asking her, and then Lyle's lips on hers, indulging in that stupid lip gloss he liked so much and making her want him even more in the just the wrong moment. The Covenants' plan was up in smoke, Dawn was ready for a fight, Nate and Wes headed into a battle with her stupid-ex-boyfriend, and to this boy, this was a signal from the universe that Winnifred needed to be kissed.

It wasn't that far off a theory.

His mouth broke from hers, and Lyle moved fast. He reached into his pocket and removed a leather sleeve, then shoved it into her beaten-and-clawed-and-so-unusable-ever-again purse. She tried to see what it was, but Lyle's voice brought her back—

"Winnifred Lambert."

She nodded. Explosions boomed from the hangar—

"I am not leaving you. If you need me, I will _come running._"

…

…

It happened fast enough that Winnifred couldn't stop it.

Lyle pushed her away.

Just far away enough that his hands left her sides. He crouched down just enough, bending his knees and tensing his arms, and then he launched into a backflip, the same way he had back in that alley they day they met.

He covered his arms and crashed through the window. Shattered glass hung for a moment like a mist before raining down on the hangar floor. Lyle turned in the air, his momentum propelling him clear across the room and to the other side. His feet met the hangar wall and he kicked off again, toward Wes and Michael's battle, Styler ready.

…Yet when she thought back to it later on, the moment was agonizingly slow, and she would remember doing nothing to stop him.

…

…

"That window cost more than either of your lives," Noel said, emerging from the hallway intersection in her expensive dress and her expensive makeup. "I'm hoping you're both prepared to pay for it."

Winnifred stared at the space where Lyle had been. He wasn't gone. He wasn't gone, because they were going to find him, and then they were going to go back to her apartment, and Lyle would hold her again and there would be more stolen afternoons and—

"Dawn and Winnifred," Noel cooed. Hearing her name, Winnifred turned her attention to the new guest. Behind Noel was the source of the sudden flames: a regal Ninetales, its perfect porcelain fur and sleek eyes an extension of its owner. "I understand one of you coming here. Both of you? That's rich. What, did you _want _to be caught?"

"Not at all," Dawn said. "We figured you had something better to do than to be Michael's henchman."

The lean girl cracked a thin, false grin.

These two knew each other.

It made sense: that's why Nate and Lyle weren't allowed to fight her. This was Dawn's business.

-Lyle-

Meganium and Ampharos were already down for the count, the former limping and struggling to stand, and the other collapsed on its side and covered in bruises. Michael hadn't sent out XD-01, not yet. His Glaceon and Leafeon paraded in the arena, their pairs of beady eyes drilling into Wes.

Lyle landed beside Wes in a three-point landing. He felt the shock landing in the balls of his feet. Definitely feeling that in the morning.

"Now, what the hell is this?" Michael groaned. "Wes, I know your Covenant pals are along for the ride, but what's this kid doing?" Then, to Lyle: "You're hanging with the wrong crowd, kid. I used to be one of you, so believe me, I know."

"No, you don't."

Michael cocked his head. Lyle extended his left arm, and the Styler nub zipped to life.

"Huh," Michael mused.

"Sorry to disappoint. Lyle Forrester, Pokemon Ranger. You're under arrest, and I am authorized to use force."

Glaceon and Leafeon turned for him now, tails stretched and backs arched. A fighting stance.

Then, Lyle's Styler: "Capture ready."

* * *

So! My NaNo turned out to work better as an original novel idea than as a fanfiction. And since I don't have the time or energy to write a full-blown novel along with my classes and internships and whatnot, it's being shelved.

Happy to be back here. Y'all know what to do. Review if you like, and thanks for reading.


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